Why don't shared files show up in HGFS?

Sharing files between my Guest Kubuntu OS and Host Windows has become a real headache.

So, far I have done the steps below:

GUEST LINUX OS

• VM -> Settings -> Options -> Shared Folders. And added my folder.
• Installed properly my VMware tools (I can drag and drop files so I am confident that it is installed)

HOST WINDOWS OS

• Shared the folder with everyone (to assure that there is no permit limitations with my files)

If I type vmware-hgfsclient in my guest OS, the folder I am sharing does appear. But when I check the /mnt/hgfs folder, it is empty.

I have gone through the VMware manual, and I am sure that I have followed their requirements.

I am really out of ideas. Does any one have a suggestion?

I had this exact problem. It turned out IT had installed some old version of VMWare tools with non-functioning vmhgfs kernel module.

My solution was to run the configuration with the clobber-kernel-modules setting to overwrite the existing vmhgfs module.

 sudo vmware-config-tools.pl -d --clobber-kernel-modules=vmhgfs

The -d selects all the defaults for you (remove it if you don't want the defaults).

Run this command:

sudo vmhgfs-fuse .host:/ /mnt/hgfs/ -o allow_other -o uid=1000

It will magically show all shared folders in /mnt/hgfs.
(I had Ubuntu 16 VMWare running on a Windows 10 host)

VMware documentation here

mount -t vmhgfs .host:/share /mnt/hgfs/ where host is the host you are connecting to share is the share name and /mnt/hgfs is the mount point for the share in your system.

vmware-hgsclient will show you the available mounts, you still need to mount them with vmware-hgfsmounter or using the mount command above described.

If that does not work check if the module vmhgfs is loaded lsmod | grep "vm."