Hi, everyone,

I've had this recurring problem with various ESX hosts, and it's usually easy (although annoying) to fix. What happens is that an ESX server suddenly loses its connection to the license server and will not reconnect, so that the ESX Server Edition shows up as Unlicensed and the License Server shows as not found. I can ping to and from the license server by hostname and IP address, and the other twelve hosts in our environment are fine. There are sufficient licenses for all hosts.

Previously, I shut down Virtual Center and restarted mgmt-vmware, vmware-vpxa, and vmware-vmkauthd on the affected host, then restarted Virtual Center, but this time it's not working. If I try to set the Server Edition to ESX Server Standard, it just goes back to Unlicensed. If I try to change the License Source, I receive the error, "Unable to change license state as the license server is not available." I don't see anything especially useful in the vpxa log.

I have opened a ticket with VMware, but I'm curious to see if anyone else has any ideas.

Thanks,

Tom