After applying the latest security updates to my Ubuntu 9.04 machine, none of the VMs will boot, giving a (seemingly endless) error message about testAutomation-fd - which is bizarre because I don't have any VMs which have a "virtual FD" device. In the UI, the only error message provided is "A general system error occurred: Cannot connect to the virtual machine"
SnapOverflow
Found the answer here: there's a file /etc/vmware/not_configured that (mysteriously) gets created on certain boots (it seems to have something to do with VMWare trying to start before the system is ready), and once you delete that file, everything appears to work just fine.