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qtiki
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USB "device not found error" when adding to VM - ESXi 6.5

I'm having a weird problem while trying to add a host-connected USB device to my VM. I can see the device when I do lsusb in ESXi ssh terminal:

[root@xxx:~] lsusb

Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0529:0620 Aladdin Knowledge Systems Token JC

...

I can also see the device in the list of USB devices when I edit VM settings:

add_usb_device.png

But when I click "save" I get the following error:

Cannot connect 'vid:0529 pid:0620 path:0/1/5' to this virtual machine. The device was not found.

I have tried restarting the ESXi server, restarting the usbarbitrator service and also plugging the device into different USB ports without any help. So I would greatly appreciate if someone has any insight into what could be causing this or how to fix it?

I'm running ESXi 6.5.0 (Build 4564106) installed from HPE-ESXi-6.5.0-OS-Release-iso-650.9.6.0.28 (Hewlett Packard Enterprise). The physical server is HPE ProLiant ML30 Gen9.

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lancechou
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Hi Tiki,

  We did find a bug mostly affecting smart card readers. It'll be fixed in vShpere6.5u1 although I don't know if it's the same issue as the one you're reporting.

  It's worth mentioning that smart card passthru is disabled by default to support DCUI login with smart card. You can also check if you have the following line in your vmx file

  usb.generic.allowCCID = "TRUE"

Thanks,

Lance

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lancechou
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There's probably a stale entry in your VM configuration (vmx) file.

Please open the vmx file and see if it contains the following entry:

usb.autoConnect.device0 = "path:0/1/5"

or

usb_xhci.autoConnect.device0 = "path:0/1/5"

If so, remove it.

Thanks,
Lance

lancechou
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BTW, I assume the Aladdin Token device could still be connected to the VM but you still saw the error in the log. Am I right?

Thanks,

Lance

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qtiki
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Unfortunately I cannot see entries like that in the VM's vmx file and also the guest OS (Windows 10) never detects the token. The error happens when trying to add the USB device and is thrown from the "Reconfig VM" task.

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qtiki
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Update: It seems if the VM is powered off I can add the USB device without any errors. However the device will show as (disconnected) and will not be usable once I power on the VM. Also I'm not able to connect the device from the VMware Remote Console as client-connected device. The device itself is working as expected when plugged in to a physical PC and I'm even able to use it in the VM if I use Windows Remote Desktop to connect with Smart Card devices shared.

Not sure if this is related, but on my own PC in Windows device manager I can see multiple devices when I plug the USB token in: a smart card reader and a smart card. Maybe ESXi is having trouble connecting the reader part?

-Tiki

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lancechou
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Hi Tiki,

  We did find a bug mostly affecting smart card readers. It'll be fixed in vShpere6.5u1 although I don't know if it's the same issue as the one you're reporting.

  It's worth mentioning that smart card passthru is disabled by default to support DCUI login with smart card. You can also check if you have the following line in your vmx file

  usb.generic.allowCCID = "TRUE"

Thanks,

Lance

qtiki
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Hi Lance,

Great news: it works now! I was unaware of this default functionality of disabling the smart card passthru. I added the usb.generic.allowCCID = "TRUE" line to my .vmx file and after that I was able to add the usb device as expected. I did need to reinstall the Windows drivers for the smart card on the guest OS before it was detected properly after I got the device to connect though.

Huge thanks for your help! I'm very happy to have it working now! Smiley Happy

-Tiki

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lancechou
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Thanks Tiki.

I'm glad to hear it resolved the issue. But as I mentioned, we did find an issue that could cause smart card failing to function after 30 minutes. The issue is resolved and should be in 6.5u1

--Lance

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qtiki
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Hi Lance,

I know this is off the original topic but I was wondering if I can install the 6.5u1 on top of the HP custom image or should I wait for HP to issue their own version of the update?

-Tiki

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lancechou
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Hi Tiki,

  Sorry, I don't know the answer. You may have to contact customer support to find out.

Thanks,

Lance

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lKaktussl
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Hi, lance,

Maybe you can tell what could be the problem? There are 2 smart cards one produced by Rutoken, the second is Jakarta, the first is defined in esxi, and the second is not.

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lancechou
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I'm sorry. I don't get the question. Could you give me more context of the issue?

If you're talking about one smart card reader present in the UI while the other is not. The possible reason would be one of the readers is a composite device, meaning containing more than one interface - most likely a storage one.

Thanks,

Lance

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