vmware player 12.5.9 + gns 2.1.5 + csr1000v 16.3.1 ova

Hello

I’ve been playing a while with csr1000v images using vmware player and after 5 hours of troubleshooting here’s some word from the wise: do not use importing the appliance option with qcow csr images because they’re broken. CSR freezes right at boot time. Apparently this has been a problem since 16.2.1

Instead, i downloaded the ova file and ran it as a vmware vm in gns3. So far so good.

Before, i was able to run csr1000v qcow image when using vmware workstation pro. When I deleted the pro version, i came across another problem: vmplayer doesn’t have the vmware VIX installed so you have to install VIX. But then you need to remember that the latest vm player version 14.x needs 1.17 VIX – release notes are there for this version but where are the download files???
In the end, I ended up downgrading to 12.5.9 version of the player with 1.15 VIX + ova csr images.

5 hours of my life.