connecting local CD/DVD drive hangs

[joernc]

Hi!

I have seen this problem several times in the last days: When trying to connect my local DVD drive through vSphere Client with a VM, the CD/DVD button shows "connecting..." but never actually finalizes the process. I think yesterday I was able to solve this problem only by powering off the VM, removing the device from the configuration and adding a new one. Now even if I remove the device, power on the VM (i.e. the CD/DVD button is greyed out because there is no device), power off the VM and add a new drive, then power it on again, the drive is still shown as "connecting..."

Is this a known problem? And how do I get out of this situation?

[joernc]

To follow up myself: I just added a second drive and tried to attach an ISO image. Now I have two drives that don't work...

[admin]

Is it a blade server? There was a known issue with guest OS not being able to see physical CD-ROM:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=1680&slice...

VMware-GSS,

VMware Communities User Moderator

[joernc]

No, I'm not talking about the drive inside the ESX server. I am talking about the drive in my desktop PC (or an ISO image stored on my PC), which I try to connect via the Infrastructure Client.

[SWarren63]

I realize this one was posted quite some time ago, but I just ran into this problem. I was able to "fix" it by completely closing out the VI client and then reopening it and reconnecting the CD/ISO. For some reason the first attempt was haning at the "Connecting" but the second attempt seemed to connect without any issues thankfully.

[strovink]

I am having the same problem when I connect the client to vCenter.  When I connect directly to the ESXi host, the client connects my local CD/DVD drive and ISO files.  This gives me a workaround, but not one I want to share with all the users.

[AlbertWT]

Yes, also face the same problem now with vSphere Client v4.1 u1, it stays hangs even after resetting the VM and turning off the VM.

[goof1427]

if this hasnt been answered...here it is. close vsphere client and run it as administrator.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=102201...

I only had to do step 1&2 and it worked fine.

[goppi]

Same problem here that from time to time connecting to an ISO hangs infinitely but only with vSphere 5.1.

Closing and restarting vSphere client fixes the problem.

We have several vSphere 4.1 installations out and there we don't see this problem.

[anil_bhatia]

closing the VI completely off and opening it again as ADMIN works. Thanks for all the help.

Regards

Anil Bhatia

[aapopov]

Helped to re-login to the server via the vSphere Client.

[joernc · Accepted solution]

As this thread still gets updates from time to time, let me answer my own question:

The problem occurs, when there is more than one instance of the vSphere Client running at the same time. I do this frequently, as I have more than one vCenter Server to manage. Even if all vSphere Clients are closed, check that no failed or hanging processes "VpxClient.exe" are around. Kill them, if necessary. Restart a single new vSphere Client, and the remote media will connect.

Starting the vSphere Client as Administrator is not necessary. The fact that it is running under another user id is probably the reason this also works.

[siong33]

it is very tedious that I need to constantly close the VM entirely and re-run it every time I am stuck with connecting local CD/DVD drive.

This needs to be solved immediately! The problem has been existed since 2009!

[Howiedog]

2018 and this kind of shit is still happening.

What a useless company.....and screw your damn Web Client crap....Never in a million years will I run that Flash crap. Huge waste of time trying to manage anything using this Web Crap. Everything takes 3x as long...morons.

Far Far Far Far faster using the C# client..so I will stay on v6.0 forever because of it.

Two TUMB DOWN for VmWare.