VMWARE Tools WARNING: Failed to get size of IP buffer / Failed to get nic info

[Alex575]

Good morning,

i have a problem with a Windows 2008 R2 SP1 Server virtual machine on ESX 5.5 Enviroment.

Every about 30 days this server brings out the following warnings related to VMware Tools, in this sequence,
every 5 minutes for about 2 hours:

#1 Event 1000 – VMWARE Tools - [ warning] [vmsvc:guestinfo] Failed to get nic info.

#2 Event 1000 – VMWARE Tools - [ warning] [vmsvc:vmsvc] Failed to get size of IP buffer.

#3 Event 2001 – Perdisk – [warning] Unable to read performance data for the Disk performance counters.

...until it becomes inaccessible!!!

It responds to the ping in a discontinuos way (not good)

Vmware tools service doesn’t run

I cannot manage the server

I must force to RESET it from Vsphere to access again .

I already re-installed once the VMware Tools, but the problem persists.

Would you have some suggestions for me about this issue?

Thanks a lot.

Alex

[jogits]

Hello

I have just gotten a report of this happening as well on one of our older Server 2008 (32-bit) servers.

We are also on ESXi 5.5. Running U3a. Tools version 9359.

[jogits]

I have had a user upgrade VMware Tools to version 10.0.5 (build version 10245) and from doing this every 10 days it has not done it since (14 days now).

I am not sure if this is the official fix but it seemed to work.

VMware Tools as of version 10 are now shipped outside of vSphere releases as noted here:

VMware Tools 10.0.0 Released - VMware Blogs

Version 10.0.5 can be downloaded here:

https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/details?downloadGroup=VMTOOLS1005&productId=491

Hope this helps you

[vtparker]

what version of ESXi was that user running when it resolved his issue? I thought the 10.0.5 release was for ESXi 6+?

We're having the same issues on a lot of our 2008 R2 VMs.  Console goes unresponsive, can't RDP, eventually we are not able to ping and we can no longer find the system in NSLOOKUP.  This is becoming a huge concern and all my instincts tell me it's related to vmtools or vm hardware versions.  Most of the vm's were running 9.0.5 vmtools from 5.1 ESXi.  Last year we brought in new 5.5 hosts and migrated VMs over to them from 5.1. 99.9% of the VMs that have had this issue had out of date tools.  After restarting the system the problem goes away.  If we update the tools the system requires a restart anyway so it's hard to tell if the upgrade resolved the issue (or just the reboot).  Lately we are starting to see this behavior on VMs with up to date tool (9.4.10). 

Thoughts?  anyone seeing this?

[schroderc]

I have this problem too with one Windows Server 2008 R2. It first started while I was running ESXi 5.5, so I finally made the move to 6.0 U1, but the problem persists. Even did as suggested and upgraded the VMTools to 10.0.5. The server with the problem is having two NIC's both vmxnet3. I have two other 2008 R2's that does not have the problem, and they are using the E1000 NIC.

My problem just started out of nowhere, the server has been working fine for a couple of years. Possibly a Windows update brought the issue? Something that interferes with vmxnet3 driver? Just a theory...

[xanadu_dm]

I do have the same problem randomly on different vm's running Windows Server 2008R2.

A reboot is restoring the network connection.

We resolved the issue for 2 VM's by bringing Windows Updates up-to-date.

Running ESXi 5.1.0 build 2583090

[Porress2000]

I have exactly the same issue! Did you guys find a solution?

Console goes unresponsive, can't RDP

[schroderc]

My server went about 3 days between the "lock outs" or what we should call it. It had 4 GB RAM, so I another another 1 GB, and this managed to keep it running for 8 days before another "lock out". I'm now on 6 GB just to see if there's any change.

Is there perhaps something eating up RAM to make it behave this way... I can't really see any obvious signs of that though.

[floydianone]

Having same issue with two of our Windows 2008 R2 servers.  Same sequence of event ID's in the application log and then server goes unresponsive.  Appears to be a memory leak or consumption issue.

We are on ESX 5.5 and vmware tools version 9.4.10, build-2068191

Has anybody solved their issues?

[udaya_dgl]

Having the same issue, we are using ESXi 5.5 U3, Please follow the below steps try to resolve the issue.

1. Verify the Guest OS have any ghost devices ( set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1) >> Devmgmt.msc >>Select Hidden Devices>.Find out there.

2. Try to check non problematic & problematics servers OS patch level.

3.Uninstall VMtools Completely and reinstall latest VMtools bundle via command mode.

Please let me know incase any issues.

Thanks@Udaya

[Winston910]

Hi All

Did we have a solution to this issue? We are seeing the same symptoms on some our VM's. No RDP being the most prevalent concern with users. The only workaround is to reset the VM's. We are at VMWARE tools v9.4.11 build 2400950.

[Winston910]

Does not look like it. We are having the same issue and the only workaround is to reset the VM, not something I want to keep doing.