Unable to obtain hardware information when converting Win2K3 SP2

[alextsa]

Dear all

I am using VCenter and ESX 4.1 and I tried to use the VCenter Converter in VCenter or Converter standalone to convert a W2K3 SP2 machine, but I get "Unable to obtain hardware Information" just after the frist step. Then I export the log and found the below error

From VMWare-converter-server1.log

[#2] [2011-10-07 18:49:38.421 02692 warning 'Locale'] Requested locale '' and/or derived locale 'Chinese_Hong Kong' not supported on OS. Using English.
[#3] [2011-10-07 18:49:41.531 02692 warning 'Locale'] Requested locale '' and/or derived locale 'Chinese_Hong Kong' not supported on OS. Using English.
[#3] [2011-10-07 18:49:42.687 00332 error 'App'] Found dangling SSL error: [0] error:00000001:lib(0):func(0):reason(1)
[#3] [2011-10-07 18:50:47.421 02692 info 'App'] ConverterConnection: KeepAlive timer canceled, StopKeepAlive succeeded
[#3] [2011-10-07 18:50:47.437 02692 info 'vmomi.soapStub[0]'] Resetting stub adapter for server PIPE:\\.\pipe\vmware-converter-worker-soap : Closed
[#3] [2011-10-07 18:50:47.484 02692 warning 'vmomi.soapStub[0]'] Canceling invocation: server=PIPE:\\.\pipe\vmware-converter-worker-soap, moref=converter.agent.AgentSessionManager:ConverterAgentSessionManager, method=logout

From Converter-gui3.log

[2011-10-07 18:58:37.078 00212 error 'App'] SourceSelectPluginModel::BuildFilter 3rd party type microsoftVirtualPCVM not found
[2011-10-07 18:58:37.078 00212 error 'App'] SourceSelectPluginModel::BuildFilter 3rd party type parallelsVM not found
[2011-10-07 18:58:37.078 00212 error 'App'] SourceSelectPluginModel::BuildFilter 3rd party type vmwareVCBBackup not found
[2011-10-07 18:58:37.078 00212 error 'App'] SourceSelectPluginModel::BuildFilter 3rd party type livestateBackup not found
[2011-10-07 18:58:37.078 00212 error 'App'] SourceSelectPluginModel::BuildFilter 3rd party type shadowProtectBackup not found
[2011-10-07 18:58:37.078 00212 error 'App'] SourceSelectPluginModel::BuildFilter 3rd party type acronisBackup not found
[2011-10-07 18:58:37.078 00212 error 'App'] SourceSelectPluginModel::BuildFilter 3rd party type vmwareVM not found
[2011-10-07 18:58:37.078 00212 error 'App'] SourceSelectPluginModel::BuildFilter 3rd party type vmwareVCBBackup not found
[2011-10-07 18:58:37.078 00212 error 'App'] SourceSelectPluginModel::BuildThirdpartyHostedExtVector 3rd party type vmwareVM not found
[2011-10-07 18:58:37.078 00212 error 'App'] SourceSelectPluginModel::BuildThirdpartyHostedExtVector 3rd party type vmwar

[2011-10-07 18:58:46.078 00332 error 'wizardController'] Cannot query source HW info: vmodl.fault.SystemError

So, may I know anyone encounter this and how to solve it? A converter log is attached for your reference.

Please let me know if you have any quesiton, many thanks.

Best regards

Alex Tsang

[patanassov]

Can you please attach the worker's logs, they are the useful ones. You can get them by exporting all logs - click on 'Task' in main menu, then 'Export logs'

Regards,

Plamen

[alextsa]

Dear  Plamen

Are they the log I attached in the first post?

Best regards

Alex Tsang

[ivivanov]

Hi Alex,

The logs attached in the first post contain only server and GUI logs. What Plamen asked for Worker logs - Converter Server installs two services - Converter Server service and Converter Worker service, that work closely together. Converter Worker logs should be available if you select a task, right click on it and select "Export logs" command. Note it would be task-specific, but not from the jobs view. If there are still no worker logs exported in the archive, you can manually collect them from the machine where Converter is installed - logs are located under "%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone\logs".

Regards,

Ivan

[alextsa]

Dear all

Sorry for the late response because I am out of town and thanks for explaination. Please find the attached for the work agent, server and worker log I found in the directory.

Best regards

Alex Tsang

[ivivanov]

Hi Alex,

I looked at the logs and the problem can be found in the following lines:

[#1] [2011-10-22 12:48:53.531 03076 warning 'App'] QueryDosDevice failed unexpectedly, err=234

[#1] [2011-10-22 12:48:53.531 03076 error 'App'] CallQueryDosDevice returned and error 234

[#1] [2011-10-22 12:48:53.531 03076 info 'App'] Scheduled timer canceled, StopKeepAlive succeeds

[2011-10-22 12:48:53.531 03076 error 'App'] Unknown exception while invoking VMOMI method queryComputerInfo

and after that the wizard cannot proceed.

Converter calls the Win32 API function QueryDosDevice() in order to get a list of all mapped drive letters on the source and provides a fixed-size buffer for receiving the result. Documentation of QueryDosDevice() (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365461(v=vs.85).aspx) states that if the provided buffer is not large enough to accomodate all returned data the function fails with ERROR_INSUFFICIENT_BUFFER. Converter checks for this error code and if this condition happens, it doubles the buffer size and retries the call. From the log it seems that instead of ERROR_INSUFFICIENT_BUFFER (error code 122) it gets ERROR_MORE_DATA (error code 234). This is not an expected error code and not handled with trying to double the buffer size and retry, so Converter assumes the function call has failed, it is unable to detect the drive letters on the system and aborts querying the source information.

Unfortunately I have no idea how this can be fixed. For handling this error gracefully Converter code needs to be changed. I am not sure whether it is fixed by some Windows update. The only thing that comes to my mind is if you are using many drive letters on your source system (that includes mapped network drives and e. g. external USB drives) you can try to remove some of them in order to get less drive letters and hopefully fit within the initial buffer without the need to resize it (it is wild guess, I have no idea whether this could help in this case, I am even not sure that ERROR_MORE_DATA is returned because the buffer is too small.).

Regards,

Ivan

[satya1]

alextsa wrote:

Dear all

Sorry for the late response because I am out of town and thanks for explaination. Please find the attached for the work agent, server and worker log I found in the directory.

Best regards

Alex Tsang

hi is there any progress ?

Yours,

Satya

[alextsa]

Dear all

This problem has been fixed by removing unused drivers in the device manager of the server, then the converter can get the hardware information and convert the machine successfully.

Many thanks for your help.

Best regards

Alex Tsang