ESXi 6.x Hangs during boot after ntfs4client loaded - SOLUTION

[karwos]

Problem scope and background

ESXi 6.x after last unclear shuttdown stopped to boot. Loading was hanging on "ntfs4client" screen.

Alt+F1 showed following error message:

jumpstart: bora/lib/vmkctl/system/SystemInfoImpl.cpp:1511: virtual void VmkCtl::System::SystemInfoImpl::SetupSymlinks(bool, bool): Assertion `locker.get()` failed.

Reason

Problem leads to damaged swap file, most likely because of power-outage, swap file is marked as 'locked' and hypervisor couldn't deal with situation. Other possible reason is due to Swap Parser bug - due to file corruption, we see Assertion Failure and process silently quits.

Solution

Boot ESXi installer. Hit ALT+F1 to open Console.

Enter "root" and press Enter twice.

cd to /vmfs/volume/

cd to system datastore (which contains swp files/vswp files)

rm *.swp

rm *.vswp

Not sure if need to remove just a *.swp or both *.swp *.vswp - i removed both and booting went OK, having no excess time checking the exact nature of problem.

Best Regards,

Piotr Karwowski

[karwos]

Forget to mention, After launching ESXi Installer, before hitting ALT+F1 to get into console, process forward to get list of Storage Objects and Datastores go get all Datastores mounted.

Also if some mod could edit first post, it's obviously "nfs4client" not "ntfs4client".

[vmstrata]

We are having this exact issue.  We can't find any of the swap files.  Our boot drive is on a USB drive.  Where exactly would the system datastore be?