Emulex Corparation HP FlexFabric 10Gb-2port 554FLB / 554M - network unstabile after firmware and driver upgrade

[Touffi]

Hello everyone

I upgraded 2 Server HP Gen 8 on monday firmware from SPP "2014090.2014_0827.10" and HP ESXi Drivers 5.1 U2 Sep 2014.

     firmware 10.2.340.19

     Driver 10.2.293.0

After two Hours lost both server connections. In Configuration/Network Adapters all devices gone and after a while they came back to display .

Network cards were disabled in Configuration/Networking.

After Reboot all network were OK but the problem raised again.

The only solution I found was a roll back for the firmware and the net-b2net driver.

     firmware  4.9.416.0

     Driver      4.9.288.0

Does someone faced with the same problem?

Thanks and Regards

Denis

[stacycarter · Accepted solution]

Yes, I've seen two other reports of similar issues.  I happen to be running ESXi 5.0 U3, but I've been wary of using the newer HP recipe/bundle from Sept/Oct because of this issue. Check out the blog post about it on the following website - ICT-Freak.nl

[JPM300]

We didn't have issues like that, be we have had a ever lasting issue with the iSCSI initiator losing its dynamic portal IP after every reboot of the host.  Emulex still hasn't released a fix for it

[Touffi]

Hi, Thanks for the link, the new driver net-be2net 10.2.293.0-1OEM.510.0.0.802205 Emulex VMwareCertified 2014-08-25 is causing the problem.

I install today again the new firmware but stay with driver version 4.9.288.0, untill now I did not see the problem raising again.

[stacycarter]

FYI for those who read this thread -

I called HP yesterday to confirm this is a known issue that HP engineering is working on.  However, it has been about a month and have not seen a public HP advisory.  In addition to that, the September and October HP recipes on vibsdepot.hp.com appear to still have the problematic HP Emulex driver.  If you are impacted, you can contact HP and they should be able to provide a workaround.  One of the workarounds is downgrading the driver/firmware versions for the nics.

[Touffi]

Hi, I did the same today. Open a case by Premium and got allready answer from HP.

It's known issue. My workaround was good, downgraded the driver and firmware.

Thanks very much.