Corrupt heartbeat detected, no active contract

[EdwXD]

Hi all,

I have been using the free ESXi 5, but after a force shutdown, I'm facing the corrupt heartbeat problem now.

According to the KB VMware KB: Unable to access certain files on a VMFS datastore , I should file a Support Request in order to solve it.

But what should I do if I don't have an active contract which I cannot file the Support Request? Why the solution of this common problem isn't documented?

Thanks.

[a_p_]

Without a support contract you can purchase VMware Incident Support | United States.

A corrupted heartbeat region is no a common issue (fortunately), and fixing it is not trivial.

André

[continuum · Accepted solution]

>> Why the solution of this common problem isn't documented?

pretty good question.
I think thats because only a small number of the VMware-support-crew can handle this type of problems.

Try to resignature the volume - that often helps.
If not - extract the datastore-contents with vmfs-fuse

If all fails let me have a look - you can call me via skype "sanbarrow" but please wait until saturday afternoon

Ulli

[EdwXD]

@a.p.

wow didn't know that I can purchase it separately, would consider to purchase one if I can't fix it myself, but really thanks for the information.

@continuum

Thanks for the suggestion, after 7 hours of trial and error, I succeeded by copying out the vmdk files, and re-uploading them back into a new position. (It's very hard for the re-uploading part... I end up using SFTP as suggested in the other thread, bug in ESXi 5.5?)

Though there still some "heart-broken" vmdk files stuck inside my datastore... it's better than reconfiguring the whole machine again

Is there any benefits for a single machine to have this heart-beat feature? Can I just turn it off?

Thanks again, you made my day

[a_p_]

VMFS is built for a cluster environment where multiple hosts are sharing a datastore, and heartbeat/on-disk-locking is required to avoid access conflicts. So there's no way to disable it.

FYI with VSAN, VMware introduced VMFS-L which removes these on-disk requirements. Since it's always the same host which maintains the local storage, the heartbeat is maintained in memory.

André