# Vagrant up fails with "failed to locate NAT vmnet device" with VMWare provider

**URL:** <https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/vagrant-up-fails-with-failed-to-locate-nat-vmnet-device-with-vmware-provider/38054>\
**Category:** Vagrant\
**Created:** [April 6, 2022, 7:38pm UTC](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/vagrant-up-fails-with-failed-to-locate-nat-vmnet-device-with-vmware-provider/38054 "2022-04-06T19:38:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![alex.krowitz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/hashicorp/user_avatar/discuss.hashicorp.com/alex.krowitz/32/23986_2.png) [@alex.krowitz](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/u/alex.krowitz)\
**Post date:** [April 6, 2022, 7:38pm UTC](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/vagrant-up-fails-with-failed-to-locate-nat-vmnet-device-with-vmware-provider/38054/1 "2022-04-06T19:38:36Z")

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After running Vagrant with the Vagrant VMWare Utility on VMWare Workstation Pro successfully for about 6 months, vagrant up is now failing with the following output:

```auto
$ vagrant up --provider=vmware_desktop
Bringing machine 'default' up with 'vmware_desktop' provider...
==> default: Verifying vmnet devices are healthy...
Vagrant encountered an error while attempting to prune unused
port forward entries:

  failed to locate NAT vmnet device

```

The behavior started after I tried to install Docker, including the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and Hypervisor, and had to uninstall it. I’ve tried with and without various combinations of Hyper-V, WSL, and Windows Hypervisor platform turned on and off as Windows Features (in “Settings” \> “Turn Windows Features On and Off”).

Following [this Vagrant post describing a similar issue](https://github.com/hashicorp/vagrant/issues/11622), I’ve also tried “vagrant cap provider scrub\_forwarded ports” and removing the nat.json file in C:\ProgramData\hashicorp\vagrant-vmware-desktop\settings

Is there a troubleshooting doc that I’ve missed that might help? Any suggestions are much appreciated!

Vagrant 2.2.19  
Vagrant VMWare Utility 1.0.21  
VMware® Workstation 16 Pro 16.2.3 build-19376536 (box Ubuntu 18.04)  
Windows 10 Enterprise 20H2 OS Build 19042.1586

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**Author:** ![fergatronanator](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/hashicorp/user_avatar/discuss.hashicorp.com/fergatronanator/32/32109_2.png) [@fergatronanator](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/u/fergatronanator)\
**Post date:** [November 17, 2022, 11:13pm UTC](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/vagrant-up-fails-with-failed-to-locate-nat-vmnet-device-with-vmware-provider/38054/2 "2022-11-17T23:13:14Z")

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I killed a few processes under task manager anything to do with VMWare/VMware workstation and it worked. So try killing whatever virtualization platform that may be running in the background and try vagrant up again switching between platforms etc.

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**Author:** ![fergatronanator](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/hashicorp/user_avatar/discuss.hashicorp.com/fergatronanator/32/32109_2.png) [@fergatronanator](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/u/fergatronanator)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2024, 5:42am UTC](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/vagrant-up-fails-with-failed-to-locate-nat-vmnet-device-with-vmware-provider/38054/3 "2024-05-24T05:42:33Z")

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Next, I ran `vagrant cap provider scrub_forwarded_ports` and got an error:

failure encountered: The virtual network type of vmnet8 is not NAT

So I modified vmware virtualbox’s network setting to set the vmnet8 network to NAT

then re-ran` vagrant up --provider=vmware_workstation` and was able to proceed.

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**Author:** ![ChristoWolf](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/hashicorp/user_avatar/discuss.hashicorp.com/christowolf/32/19957_2.png) [@ChristoWolf](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/u/ChristoWolf)\
**Post date:** [May 27, 2024, 5:06am UTC](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/vagrant-up-fails-with-failed-to-locate-nat-vmnet-device-with-vmware-provider/38054/4 "2024-05-27T05:06:45Z")

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Yeah, as @fergatronanator suspects, this sounds like a misconfiguration issue with VMware Workstation’s network settings, as vmnet8 is expected to be NAT.

Otherwise, the VMware logs might give some hints.