ESXi 4.1: The vSPhere Client could not connect...

[nchand]

I am receiving an error when trying to connect to a host using the IP address directly and through Virtual Center Server. I am just noticing it, can not tell how long it has been going on.

SSH works fine.

All guest servers work fine on this box.

I noticed it because I tried running resxtop from my VMA and it took forever to load this server. However, I am not seeing any performance counters that look out of the ordinary. In fact, my utilization looks quite stable.

I have tried connecting from different machines, and the client gives the same error on each machine:

"The vSphere Client could not connect to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx. The server xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx took too long to respond. (The command has timed out as the remote server is taking too long to respond.)"

I have reset the management network, and that did not work. Strangely, on the DCUI, pressing F2 does nothing after I put my root credentials in. The screen freezes for a while. I can toggle to the log view and back, but I cannot manage the configuration this way. Everything I have done, I have done through SSH as this seems to still function just fine. System up time is 638 days, I am thinking about rebooting it but that would be a major pain if I have to do that.

Suggestions? Thanks in advance.

[OscarDavey]

Restart the management agent on the ESXI , for more info on how to do this and a step by step guide please check this :

VMware KB: Restarting the Management agents on an ESXi or ESX host

Hope this will help

Best regards

Yours, Oscar

[nchand]

Yes, I have restated the agents and it does not fix the issue. I may just have to reboot the machine, but I am reluctant to as the VMs all work.

[BenLiebowitz]

Is the management network on a different subnet/vlan than your VMs?  Does it have it's own NICs?  Have you checked link activity on the back of the server to make sure all NICs are connected and functioning?

I had something similar happen a few months back and the end result was having to force a restart.  We RDP'd to the VMs and shut as many as we could down manually to avoid corruption first. 

Good luck!

[Ved369]

VMware KB: Service mgmt-vmware restart may not restart hostd

Try using below commands through SSH

1. To restart hostd agent and vpxa agent respectively.
   /etc/init.d/hostd restart
   /etc/init.d/vpxa restart
2. Alternatively, to restart all management agents on the host, run the following command:
   
   services.sh restart
   

Hope this helps.

[nchand]

Thanks for the response, but as mentioned in my original message and followup to Ben, these procedures do not resolve my issue.

[nchand]

I never got this resolved, but now I had to restart my host. But, now I cannot connect to it with VSphere client or manage machines through the CLI. I can ssh, but when I run vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms -  it just hangs.

Again, if I visit the server, hit F2, I enter my credentials but nothing happens! I have cold-rebooted this system and this keeps happening. Now I cannot get any of MY VMs to boot.