Deprecated (May 2020)
This is no longer required when using VMware Fusion ≥ 11.5.
Problem
When you virtualise macOS on a host with a Secure Enclave Processor (SEP) (any Mac with Touch ID or T2 chip) the virtualised operating system (OS) looks for the SEP to perform authentication actions.
As described below by @macshome, this leads to a delay whenever you try to perform some authentication actions via the User Interface (UI).
If you reflect the host board then macOS will assume there is a SEP and TouchID module that it should be using. In the VM though there isn’t one so you are forced to wait for a timeout on every authentication while it desperately looks for the module.
— macshome (@macshome) June 14, 2019
You can see an example of this delay, twenty four (24) seconds, in the below video:
Solution
With so many people running macOS in a VM right now here is a ProTip for Fusion on a TouchID Mac.
— macshome (@macshome) June 7, 2019
Set:
board-id.reflectHost = "FALSE"
Now your auth dialog spins are gone!
Once this change is applied there’s no longer a delay. The authentication flow only takes six (6) seconds.
Editing the .vmx File
You need to edit the .vmx file which is located inside the VMBundle of your VM. While it appears as a single file in Finder the VMBundle is actually an archive. This is where your VMs hard disk and a bunch of other files and logs reside. See VMware KB article 1021016 for more info on VMbundle contents.
Update: Per @macshome’s tweet there’s a much easier way to edit the .vmx file1.
In the Virtual Machine Library (⇧⌘L) right click the VM then press the option key (⌥) then click “Open Config File in Editor”. This will open the VMs .vmx file in TextEdit.
With the .vmx file open in TextEdit change
board-id.reflectHost = "TRUE"
to
board-id.reflectHost = "FALSE"
The .vmx file is included in snapshots so you’ll want to perform this edit as soon as you create your VM. If you make this change and restore a snapshot you created before editing the .vmx file the change won’t persist, the previous state of the .vmx file will be restored by the snapshot.
Photo by daniel plan on Unsplash