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ionmeitoiu
Contributor
Contributor

what happens if "Error saving dvport" is logged

Hello fellow vmers,

I have an intriguing issue. Last week i performed a full power cycle test for my hardware.(10 hp bl460c g7 blades) all running vsphere 5 on a vcenter server.

After the PowerOn event and things settled down i observed that some of my vms have their network in a disconnected state. I am talking here about the connected at power on mark checked but connected not checked. Upon further investigation i couldn't find any pattern regarding from which dvPortGroup or which vSphere host did the vms with the errors came from. I did a quick  powershell script that connected all the missing networks and that was it.

I now wander what happened and most importantly why? Let me explain a bit more about my infrastructure:

1. 10 vSphere hosts. v5.0

2. 100% of the vms are on local storage. i only use a small iscsi shared datastore for when i need to migrate something live from one host to another.

3. before my power cycle i unmonted the shared datastore to be shure that i don't enconunter any issues.

4. digging through the logs i found a lot of errors like: [2B3C5B90 warning 'NetworkProvider'] Error saving dvport 1d 23 14 50 4e 2f 08 97-60 47 78 ac c2 f2 91 2d-1717 to file /vmfs/volumes/4ee5dc5e-518c5294-78fe-0010185df286/.dvsData/1d 23 14 50 4e 2f 08 97-60 47 78 ac c2 f2 91 2d/1717 repeated hundreads of times and the dvPortID matched the vms that didn't have the network cards connected.

5. The /vmfs/volumes/4ee5dc5e-518c5294-78fe-0010185df286/ matched the ID for the disconnected iscsi shared datastore

a. What does really happens when i power on a vm connected to the dvs? Do all the hosts from the dvs update on disk the dvs config and if one of them fails to update the port doesn't get connected?

b. Why does it try to update the dvs config from an unmounted datastore?

c. When i powered on the infrastructure i've set up the delay between the vms to 5seconds. could this affect the lock on the disks to the point of failing to update the dvs and getting the port not connected? (i have ~500 vms / ~50/ server  that powered at 5 sec each)

Thank you for your attention

Ion

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mrnick1234567
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi,

Did you ever get an answer to why you were getting the Error Saving DV port messages? I have the same on an NFS based storage system - it's trying to save data to a non existant volume. We've migrated datastores so it could be the destination relates to an old location, however I've rebooted the ESXi5 host and it's not made any difference.

Nick

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Virtualinfra
Commander
Commander

What version of vcenter are you using vcenter 5.0 or Update1 or update 1a ?

Thanks & Regards Dharshan S VCP 4.0,VTSP 5.0, VCP 5.0
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mrnick1234567
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

It's Vcentre 5.0.0 build 623373

Nick

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Virtualinfra
Commander
Commander

vCentre 5.0.0 build 623373 is vcenter 5.0 U1 refer kb

Issue seems to be similar to that I have faced, refer kb, the VM which are storage migrated and later the datastore is remove , will have this issue with vcenter version 5.0 u1, 1a, this is a know issue and fix for this is to update to vcenter 5.0 U1b

as mentioned only some of the vms affected, so those vms should be storage migrated and they looking for the port information in the datastore. to be very much clear dvport information is stored in datastore, where the VM resides.

"

When a virtual machine is attached to a dvPortgroup, port information is stored in the virtual machine configuration file (.vmx) and on the VMFS volume on which the virtual machine is registered.
The VMFS volume has a sub-directory that contains the name of the port number used by the virtual machine. When you use Storage vMotion to move the virtual machine to a different datastore, this data may not be recreated on the destination datastore."
Thanks & Regards Dharshan S VCP 4.0,VTSP 5.0, VCP 5.0
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mrnick1234567
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi, Yes thanks for that. I see the port is not saved in the .dvs directory. Storage migrating the machine re creates the port file.

I'm going to do a rolling reboot of all the hosts anyhow, so I'll see if that clears it. I think it might as one of the ESXi hosts was rebooted and now it doesn't log any of those errors.

Nick

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mrnick1234567
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Rebooting the ESXi host makes no difference, you have to migrate the VM or turn it off and change the port group per the kb.

This is frustrating as I must have had 30+ machines in this state, all I guess as a result of moving them to a new datastore.

Thanks for the tip

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Virtualinfra
Commander
Commander

Update vCenter to 5.0 U1b or U2 to fix this in further not to happen.

Thanks & Regards Dharshan S VCP 4.0,VTSP 5.0, VCP 5.0
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eXoRt
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

unfortunately, this is still case in vCenter 5.1 U1 build 1235232 , ESXi 5.1.0 build 1065491

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