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DavidYorkshire
Contributor
Contributor

Heartbeat status gray on running VMs

Hi,

I've been checking my VMs with RVtools, and several are showing as having a heartbeat status of gray, which apparently means 'VMware Tools are not installed or not running'

With some of them that is indeed correct (they are shut down). However, a number of running VMs are also showing this, and I can't work out why - they have the tools installed, and the WMware Tools service is running. In vcenter, the summary tabs on the affected VMs also show the tools as runnning. I have tried doing a repair installation of the tools on one of them, followed by a reboot, but that didn't seem to make any difference. There doesn't seem to be any common factor as regards the roles the VMs perform, and they aren't all running the same OS (some Server 2012 R2, some Server 2016).

Can anyone suggest why this might be happening?

Thanks

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daphnissov
Immortal
Immortal

As RVtools isn't a VMware product, you might want to ask the developer. Maybe it's a bug?

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DavidYorkshire
Contributor
Contributor

RVTools just pulls its data from vsphere so I doubt if it's an issue woth RVTools.

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daphnissov
Immortal
Immortal

But you don't know that. Try and see if you can reproduce it in PowerCLI or the likes.

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DavidYorkshire
Contributor
Contributor

I can't get PowerCLI to work properly on the computer I am using, and I don't have time to spend hours fiddling around with it.

Looks like I'd better put in a call to our support company as it doesn't look like I'm going to get any assistance here...

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sk84
Expert
Expert

You can check the heartbeat status of virtual machine via the performance view in the vSphere Web Client:

1. Select VM -> Monitor -> Performance -> Advanced

2. Above the diagramm you can edit the "Chart Options"

3. In the dialog that opens, select "System" and the "Heartbeat" counter

4. You may also adjust the time interval to see if the heartbeat has failed in the last x hours/days

If everything's all right, you should see a straight line.

And if everythin is okay in this performance view, the problem must be in rvtools which is not supported by VMware.

Looks like I'd better put in a call to our support company as it doesn't look like I'm going to get any assistance here...

You get support here if it's an issue with VMware products and not for third-party products. And don't forget that this forum is community driven and lives from the support and work of volunteers. We therefore expect some cooperation from you. However, if you don't want to deal with the problem by yourself, the only way is to open an official support case directly at VMware. That's what the SnS contracts are for. But I can already tell you what they will answer if you report a problem with rvtools. 😉

--- Regards, Sebastian VCP6.5-DCV // VCP7-CMA // vSAN 2017 Specialist Please mark this answer as 'helpful' or 'correct' if you think your question has been answered correctly.
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