flyride Posted August 16, 2021 Share #1 Posted August 16, 2021 I run my main NAS on ESXi which has been progressively upgraded from 6.5 to the current 7.0U2 version released a few months ago. Over the past weeks, I have begun to encounter odd crashes where the NAS VM becomes essentially unresponsive (although it does ping). Other VM's running on the host become sluggish and eventually hang. Looking at load averages etc on the VMs, they are being starved for CPU and eventually lock up. While the ESXi console and web tools remain responsive, they are unable to control the VMs. Attempting to force shutdown guests and/or reboot the host eventually results in ESXi itself hanging. The only solution is a hard reset. I believe these articles describe the problem and solution: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/83376 https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2149257 https://www.provirtualzone.com/vsphere-7-update-2-loses-connection-with-sd-cards-workaround/ I have VMWare installed on a USB drive which seems to be susceptible to the issue along with SD cards. So far, since moving VMWare Tools to ramdisk, I have yet to encounter another hanging event, although it was not clear what triggered it or how long it might take to occur again. Posted for community benefit, in the case this issue is affecting others. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
captainfred Posted October 25, 2021 Share #2 Posted October 25, 2021 Thanks for this, I'm about to upgrade and do use a USB drive for ESXi, however I don't see how it is due to accessing VMware Tools - surely they are only accessed when you upgrade them or install a new VM, once they are installed they are installed right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyride Posted October 25, 2021 Author Share #3 Posted October 25, 2021 The tools I'm speaking of refer to the web services add-on for VMware in lieu of vCenter -- not the VMware tools you install on a client in order to communicate OS-based VM status back to VMware. That toolset apparently writes to its install location on a regular basis, which in 7.0U2 is the boot media unless changed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
captainfred Posted October 25, 2021 Share #4 Posted October 25, 2021 Ah right, so the issue wouldn't occur if not using vCenter (like me)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyride Posted October 25, 2021 Author Share #5 Posted October 25, 2021 No, the issue does occur if you have the app package installed that allows you to manage your ESXi server using http/https. This is standard with ESXi 7.0 but was optional in earlier versions. So it is very unlikely that you do NOT have it installed. But if you didn't install it and were in fact using vCenter, the problem might not be manifested. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
captainfred Posted October 26, 2021 Share #6 Posted October 26, 2021 I haven't upgraded to ESXi 7 yet. I know what you mean now, the web interface to manage VMs and a standalone host. I guess I should really move off the USBs to SSDs for ESXi as thats they way VMware is going for 7.0.3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeoID Posted October 28, 2021 Share #7 Posted October 28, 2021 (edited) Oh thanks a ton for the links! I thought I was the only one having these issues. I've encountered this as well after going to v7u2 (installed on a USB device) and have been pulling my hairs out of frustration. I've since upgraded to u3 and haven't yet encountered the issue again so hope this one is true... Quote For ESXi 7.0, the issue is resolved in Update 3, available at VMware Downloads . Edited October 28, 2021 by NeoID Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.