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langga27
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Frequently Hang, Windows Server 2012 R2 in EXSi 6.7

Hello everyone,

I wish your day was great.

I am so confused, this is my first job after freshly graduated and I am lacked of experience. I really often to see HA Monitoring automatically restart the VM. I was thinking that it because the vmtools that running on this VM is 10.2 (i failed to update the VMware Tool to the latest). but I tried to contact VMware support and confirmed that the vmware tool is not the problem. so I think that the VM is the problem. I have several questions.

  1. Is Win Server 2012 R2 unstable on EXSi 6.7?
  2. how do I know what causing the hang of this VM?
  3. I don't know which one to look at. Where should I start to look at for troubleshooting this? (please see picture below)

Untitleda.jpg

Thank You very much

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langga27
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Hi Gonzalez.

I will try it

Thank You!

After a brief and depth analysis of this problem, our team assumes that this is a problem with the Guest OS and nothing to do with the vSphere. Thank you, everyone. thread closed. *Still open to any advice or discussion.

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17 Replies
Lalegre
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Hey langga27​,

Assuming that you have VM Monitoring enabled in the vSphere HA configurations these are the reasons of why the VM is restarting itself:

  • That VMs VMware Tools heartbeats are not received in a set period of time)
  • The VM isn’t generating any storage or network IO (for 120 seconds by default)

Windows Server 2012 R2 is completely stable in that version even much more before in previous versions. You can check multiple spots to see why is crashing. From VMware perspective you can open the VM files browsing the datastore and search for the vmware.log that can give you some information about the VM and its operations.

From inside Windows you can check the Event Viewer to identify some issues.

Some recommendations to start from my side are:

  • Try to use VMXNET3 as Network
  • Try to uninstall the VMware Tools and re-install the newly ones (First take an snapshot)

You can also check this KB to identify what causes the VM to be rebooted: VMware Knowledge Base

Also you can follow the next KB to see VMware Tools logs in case the reason were the unresponsiveness of them: VMware Knowledge Base

langga27
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Hello Lalegre,

Thank you for your time to advise me about my problem. I really appreciate it. It is so helpful! I know that the VM Monitoring is in action. but i don't know why the VM is hang. Thank you for your explanation!

Thank You so much

RajeevVCP4
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required some information

During hang are you able to ping virtual machine

What do you mean hang ( not able to RDP/slow performance/not able to open file etc) please clarify this.

How much CPU/RAM assigned for this VM?

can you attached latest vmware.log file and time stamp when vm was hung

Rajeev Chauhan
VCIX-DCV6.5/VSAN/VXRAIL
Please mark help full or correct if my answer is use full for you
langga27
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yes sure,

I cant ping the VM. hang as not responding (freeze). this VM is a DHCP Server. is the service too heavy for the VM? this VM was 4 cpu and 8 gb RAM. I am sorry, if you see the picture in my post above, the log is empty (0 kb). and it was migrated from vSphere 6.5. the vmtools was 10.1.15 now upgraded to 10.2.5

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scott28tt
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Windows Server 2012 R2 is fully supported on ESXi 6.7, confirmed on pages 127-128 of this: https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/pdf/VMware_GOS_Compatibility_Guide.pdf

The DHCP server service is very light, so 4 vCPUs and 8Gb memory sounds very excessive - are you sure there are no other applications or services active within Windows?

Is there a pattern to when the "hang" or "freeze" happens? How do you know or observe the "hang" or "freeze" has taken place?

Are there any messages in the Windows event logs for the times when things go wrong?


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nachogonzalez
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Hey, hope your are doing fine.
Congrats on your graduation

Can you check the following:
- Is VM monitoring enabled on the cluster?

- Have you ran an esxtop or a perfcharts on the VM checking for CPU ready or balloning
- Have you checked if VMXNET3 NIC is installed?
- Are VMware tools installed and running?
- Have you checked windows Event Viewer? What do you see?

langga27
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Hello Sir,

Windows Server 2012 R2 is fully supported on ESXi 6.7, confirmed on pages 127-128 of this: https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/pdf/VMware_GOS_Compatibility_Guide.pdf

>thank you sir for the information

The DHCP server service is very light, so 4 vCPUs and 8Gb memory sounds very excessive - are you sure there are no other applications or services active within Windows?

> I just know that DHCP service is light now, thank you. If I'm not mistaken, there are another services running in the VM (I don't have permission to enter the VM)

Is there a pattern to when the "hang" or "freeze" happens? How do you know or observe the "hang" or "freeze" has taken place?

>Yes sir, I know the VM was "hang" because the User told me that the VM is down. we could not ping the VM too.

Are there any messages in the Windows event logs for the times when things go wrong?

> I am sorry sir, i can not check in to the VM without permission. I will check it when i have the permission.

Thank You so much to join the discussion sir

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langga27
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Thank You so much!

>Is VM monitoring enabled on the cluster?

It was, but now i turned it off. I want to know exactly is it an error of the Center or the VM

>Have you ran an esxtop or a perfcharts on the VM checking for CPU ready or balloning

i am sorry, i dont know what is esxtop or perftcharts. i will find it out soon

>Have you checked if VMXNET3 NIC is installed?

I dont know what it is too. i will find out soon

>Are VMware tools installed and running?

Yes, its running when the VM does not freeze. but when the VM freeze, the VMtools not running. I want to know, is it because the VMtools or because of the VM it self?

>Have you checked windows Event Viewer? What do you see?

No, i have not. I am sorry, i am just a beginner and i dont know what to check at the first place.

Thank You Gonzalez  to join the discussion

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nachogonzalez
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>Is VM monitoring enabled on the cluster?

It was, but now i turned it off. I want to know exactly is it an error of the Center or the VM

If it is disabled right now there should be no issues right now-

>Have you ran an esxtop or a perfcharts on the VM checking for CPU ready or balloning

i am sorry, i dont know what is esxtop or perftcharts. i will find it out soon

esxtop is similar to linux's top but with specififc metrics to VMware --> ESXTOP - Yellow Bricks | Yellow Bricks
CPU ready and balloning are symptoms of cpu and resource contention which can bring a VM down
Perfcharts are performance charts, graphics that indicate how a VM is performing go to --> VM--> mointor --> performance

>Have you checked if VMXNET3 NIC is installed?

I dont know what it is too. i will find out soon

Virtual machines can have different types of Virtual NIC's (network cards)
VMXNET3 is the recommended one for Windows Server 2012

>Are VMware tools installed and running?

Yes, its running when the VM does not freeze. but when the VM freeze, the VMtools not running. I want to know, is it because the VMtools or because of the VM it self?

You can do a manual test to determine this: go to the VM OS and stop the VMWare tools service-

Additionaly you can re-install vmware tools in order to discard vmware tools issues

>Have you checked windows Event Viewer? What do you see?

No, i have not. I am sorry, i am just a beginner and i dont know what to check at the first place.

check Application and system tabs, then filter by errors and warning for the timeframe in which the error courred.

langga27
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Hi Gonzalez

>If it is disabled right now there should be no issues right now-

yesterday morning when the HA Monitoring turned off, the VM "hang" so I need to power off it and turn it on again. I want to turn on the HA Monitoring without any issue but i could not.

>esxtop is similar to linux's top but with specififc metrics to VMware --> ESXTOP - Yellow Bricks | Yellow Bricks

CPU ready and balloning are symptoms of cpu and resource contention which can bring a VM down
Perfcharts are performance charts, graphics that indicate how a VM is performing go to --> VM--> mointor --> performance

I am sorry, the page is 404. do you mean like this? yes, the CPU is spiking, is it affected by the VMware Tools version?

Untitled.png

>Virtual machines can have different types of Virtual NIC's (network cards)

VMXNET3 is the recommended one for Windows Server 2012

is this a driver that I should install in the VM?

>You can do a manual test to determine this: go to the VM OS and stop the VMWare tools service-

Additionaly you can re-install vmware tools in order to discard vmware tools issues

I tried it about a week ago. HA Monitoring did not restart the VM.

>check Application and system tabs, then filter by errors and warning for the timeframe in which the error courred.

ok, I will check it when I have permission to get in the VM

Thank You, Gonzalez

*My post is not an urgent problem. This issue happened since 3 weeks ago, I just want to discuss because I still not satisfied just by turning off the HA Monitoring, I want to enable HA Monitoring without any issue. I appreciated those who spend their time just to join the discussion. Thank you everyone

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nachogonzalez
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Another question i'd like to ask

Is this the only VM that gets affected by HA VM monitoring?
Are there other VMs in the cluster?
Can you share HA settings and cluster settings?

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langga27
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Sure,

>Is this the only VM that gets affected by HA VM monitoring?

No. recently, about 3 VM including this one. all of the VM is Win Server 2012

>Are there other VMs in the cluster?

yes, not much. it has 20 VM

>Can you share HA settings and cluster settings?

Sure

Untitled.png

Don't hesitate to ask me another thing

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nachogonzalez
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If you allow me to make a suggestion:

I would enable host isolation, APD and PDL.
Regarding the VM Monitoring i don't usually use it, but this is a personal opinion.

I would check the NIC installed on those VMs for sure and make sure it is VMXNET3 and the latest VMware tools are updated (maybe a VM tools reinstall?)

Why i make all this suggestions?

There are reported problems with e1000 adapters and windows Operating systems, that causes packet drops
VM Monitoring, amongst other things, monitors VMware tools via heartbeats if network is down the VM will be declared dead.

Regarding host isolation it might happen that one of the hosts is isolated from the rest of the network? what would happen to the VMs in that scenario
Same goes for a PDL (permanent device loss) and APD (all paths down) in both scenarios i'd say restart VMs in other hosts.

langga27
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Hello Gonzalez,

Sorry for my late response, I was falling asleep.

>I would enable host isolation, APD and PDL. Regarding the VM Monitoring i don't usually use it, but this is a personal opinion.

Sure, i will consider this.

>I would check the NIC installed on those VMs for sure and make sure it is VMXNET3 and the latest VMware tools are updated (maybe a VM tools reinstall?)

long story short, This VM cant install KB2919355. Now i install this VM with VMware Tools 10.2.5. please visit this VMware Knowledge Base. Yes i checked the adapter and it is VMXNET3.

Untitled.png

>There are reported problems with e1000 adapters and windows Operating systems, that causes packet drops. VM Monitoring, amongst other things, monitors VMware tools via heartbeats if network    is down the VM will be declared dead.

Thank You for the information! i just know it now from you!

Can you or anyone else suggest me what should I check in the right order,please? I mean, what first i should check,and then,and then,and then.

Thank You, Gonzalez

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langga27
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nachogonzalezscott28tt​ and Everyone

I wish you have a great time today sir,

I have entered the vm today, and have the exported file of the Event Viewer.

Please sir how do i read this?

Untitled.png

Thank You so much

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langga27
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Hi Gonzalez.

I will try it

Thank You!

After a brief and depth analysis of this problem, our team assumes that this is a problem with the Guest OS and nothing to do with the vSphere. Thank you, everyone. thread closed. *Still open to any advice or discussion.

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