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3 Replies Last post: Jun 9, 2009 4:30 PM by jjgunn  

Could not power on VM : Limit exceeded - What limit? posted: Jun 4, 2009 9:17 PM

Click to view gbaysden5150's profile Lurker
gbaysden5150
1 posts since
Jun 4, 2009

I using LM 3.0.1 and ESX 3.5 in the lab. The LM cluster is two nodes configured with HA and Vmotion enabled. I count about 37 VM's deployed, 22 networks. I recently tried to power-on one of my configs and got an error:

VirtualMachine.powerOn task on PowerOnVM_Task failed: Could not power on VM : Limit exceeded. Failed to power on VM.

I checked the VIC logs and found basically the same error: Could not power on VM : Limit exceeded

Q: Where can I find details of exactly what limit was exceeded? From the ESX summary page , the server seems to have enough memory and other resources.

Thanks for advice/suggestions.

-Greg

Re: Could not power on VM : Limit exceeded - What limit?

1. Jun 4, 2009 9:24 PM in response to: gbaysden5150
Click to view Chamon's profile Master
Chamon
822 posts since
Aug 15, 2007
Do you have the fail over capacity in HA set to do not allow constraint violations? If so you may need to uncheck that and then try. What is the fail over capacity compaired to the configured?

Re: Could not power on VM : Limit exceeded - What limit?

2. Jun 8, 2009 2:53 PM in response to: gbaysden5150
Click to view PezJunkie's profile Enthusiast
PezJunkie
54 posts since
Aug 2, 2006
Also check under Manage -> Resources. Go to the Hosts tab and check the properties for the ESX hosts.
On mine, there is a line that says "Maximum Number of VMs Automatically managed by DRS"

You mention that you're using HA & VMotion, but you didn't mention DRS.

Is the "Max Number of VM's" a configurable option if you're not using DRS on your Lab Manager cluster? (I know it used to be, in the older versions of Lab Manager that weren't 100% integrated with VirtualCenter.)

Re: Could not power on VM : Limit exceeded - What limit?

3. Jun 9, 2009 4:30 PM in response to: gbaysden5150
Click to view jjgunn's profile Novice
jjgunn
18 posts since
Dec 2, 2008

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1009144

I'll just bet it's the COW settings. Also, ensure your Service Console is set to 800MB (Max.)

Default is 32 (minimum)

When you exhaust the allocated COW heap size and you cannot power-on the virtual machines, check the var/log/vmkernel file for messages indicating that the COW heap has been exhausted. If you have exhausted the COW heap, reconfigure the values on ESX Server. You cannot update the values on Lab Manager.
To update the values on ESX Server:

  1. log in to ESX Server by using the VI Client.
  2. Click the Configuration tab.
  3. Click the Advanced Settings link.
    The Advanced Settings window appears.
  4. Select COW.
  5. Update the value for the COW.MaxHeapSizeMB parameter.

Best of luck!

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