Web Client - Continually Loses Connection - Essentials Plus 6.0.0b

[jws1982]

Hey guys, looking for a little help on a very annoying issue.

Essentials Plus 6.0.0b

3 ESXi hosts (HP DL360 G9's)

One Win 2K8 R2 server hosting vCenter Server and platform services controller.

I've had no problems setting up ESXi on the hosts, setting up vCenter, adding the hosts to vCenter, setting up SSO with our domain, and running a couple test VM's. 

The problem I'm having is with the web client.  While using it, it frequently disconnects with the message "Could not connect to vSphere Web Client.  Contact your administrator to fix this issue.".   It happens randomly.  I then refresh the web page, it comes back up, and works normally again for a while until the error repeats.  This happens using any browser on a couple different workstations. 

The regular vSphere desktop client works just fine.  No disconnects, no errors.  It's just the web client.

I've increased the storage available in flash for the site to Unlimited. Any other ideas for me to try?  I've attached a screenshot of the error in Chrome.

[douglasarcidino]

I would check the log files in vcenter. Do you have sufficient memory and CPU?

Just to rule it out by the way, can you use the web client from the console of the vcenter server and see if the problem persists? This will rule out networking.

[jws1982]

The VM is 6-core (2 socket, 3 cores each) with 10GB RAM.  Thanks for the tip on using the web client locally.   It does not give me the error while running it locally in IE11.  It does have random delays that are very similar to when the remote workstations fail, but the error never appears, and normal functionality resumes. It's almost like there's a occasional delay on the backend somewhere in the server, which times out on the workstations, but not locally.

Which logs should I check?  The web client log (vsphere-client) is clean, and there's only one error in the main server log (vmware-vpx), which repeats occasionally:  2016-01-25T13:11:04.221-06:00 error vpxd[07056] [Originator@6876 sub=SoapAdapter.HTTPService] Failed to read request; stream: <io_obj p:0x0000000004d2e788, h:952, <TCP '127.0.0.1:8085'>, <TCP '127.0.0.1:51786'>>, error: class Vmacore::SystemException(An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host)

[douglasarcidino]

4 cores should be fine for you environment but I generally configure Windows vCenter servers with 16GB of RAM. I don't know if that is causing any issues since you are only using 3.5GB in your screen grab. Let me poke around some logs here and try to point you in the right direction. What's your vSwitch configuration look like on the host with the vCenter?

[jws1982 · Accepted solution]

I found the issue.  It's AVG AntiVirus Business Edition, version 2016.  Specifically, in the program, it's either the web component or computer component (resident shield), most likely the web component.  The 2013 version has similar components, but does not cause an issue with the web client.   All the workstations I tried at first had been upgraded to the 2016 version.    Disabling AVG on those systems stops the issue.

...Now to see if I can find the specific setting in AVG 2016 to modify.  I'll post it here if I find it.   I'll also contact AVG about it, as I'm sure I won't be the first person to run into this issue.