Event ID 7024 - The VMware VirtualCenter Server service terminated with service-specific error 2 (0x2) upon starting up VC Server

[joboo12]

I am currently running VC 2.5 virtualized. WIndows 2003 SP2 with SQL Express 2005. Everytime I reboot the server I received Event ID 7024 - The VMware VirtualCenter Server service terminated with service-specific error 2 (0x2). Eventually I am able to manually start the service and everything is fine. Has anyone else experienced this issue?

Thanks

[jhanekom]

2008-05-13 13:24:42.555 'App' 3124 error ODBC error: (08001) - MicrosoftSQL Native ClientSQL Network Interfaces: Error Locating Server/Instance Specified xFFFFFFFF.

That's where you need to focus your troubleshooting attempts: "Error Locating (SQL) Server/Instance Specified". Make sure your SQL instance is available and correctly configured, also make sure that VirtualCenter is pointing in the right direction.

[VMmepls]

Is the SQL instance running on the same server? Can you test the connection with a .udl file? Maybe restart the SQL services?

[Adam-ProInteg]

I had the same issue whereby the Virtual Center Server service would not start unless I manually stopped the IIS service, started the VC Service, then restart the IIS service. This is most likely a port conflict in IIS with multiple apps trying to use the same IIS port but hey, I'm guessing at this point. I'll post once I get to the bottom of it.

Adam Swinehart

Professional Integrations LLC

www.professionalintegrations.com

949-581-1099

Orange County, California - USA

[scerazy]

Not in my case as I do not have IIS on this server at all

[jgill]

I am sure this post is probably closed but this is what I found in my instance with the same error. I could not get the service to start no matter what I did. All that happened to the box was it was rebooted. No additions, changes, etc. I thought about it and realized that VC needs IIS to be installed but not running for the Web interface to work. When I rebooted the service started by itself and would not allow me to start the licensing server service. Once I stopped this and set to manual I was able to start the VC service again like normal and have rebooted since and came up on its own fine this time.

John

[jhanekom]

I don't believe there's a dependency on IIS being installed. The clues to the true source of the problem is usually revealed in the log files under C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware. I'd suggest investigating that in order to make sure you didn't just get lucky this time with the order in which the services started up - otherwise you may run into the problem again in the nearby future.

[Mark_Bradley]

Hi,

I have just seen this exact error. In this case it was due to one of the ESX Hosts being ESX 3.5 Update 2 and VirtualCenter was 2.5 Update 1. Once I had applied Update 2 to VirtualCenter the service started fine again.

[scerazy]

Sorry, but that is a complete nonsense! You simply noticed it in this particular situation

This error was way before even 3.5 existed & certainly service on Win machine should not care what ESX server is elsewhere

Seb

[Mark_Bradley]

Seb,

I am only sharing what I experienced today. One of the ESX servers updated with Update Manager to Update 2. Post this update of the ESX server when rebooting the VirtualCenter service failed with this exact error. There was no IIS installed, SQL was set as a dependency for the VirtualCenter Service, and the Service was running as a service account rather than local system. Although this seems strange that one ESX 3.5 Update 2 server would affect VirtualCenter like this. The main reason I posted this was so that if anyone else is seeing this problem, however unlikely you believe that to be, they could at least check this out.

Just because an error existed in a previous version doesn't mean it cannot be seen in later versions.

[scerazy]

Of course the error exits in later versions as well. It would be great if Vmware did get it right & at least be able to diagnoze what is causing it

Seb

[bobby311]

holy s**t

i was beating my head against a wall and then remembered that I JUST added two Update 2 esx hosts to VC update 1.

I did the upgrade to VC update 2 and bam! everything is working

thank you thank you thank you

[abrjgl]

I just got this as well. I use fixed baselines in Update Manager to prevent this situation. I added a new ESX 3.5u1 server and asked Update Manager to remediate. But for unkown resons Update Manager installed ESX350-200806201-UG and ESX350-200806202-UG as a prerequisite for ESX350-200804404-BG and ESX350-200804405-BG. And afterwards the server reported as build 103908 (same build as ESX 3.5u2). Needless to say I didn't like this at all but Update Manager insisted on installing the two later updates no matter what I tried. Well I ran with it and it seemed to work until I restarted the Virtual Center server and got this error. Upgrading to VC 2.5u2 fixed the problem so far. I have checked the descriptor.xml files that Update Manager uses and can not find any reason to why it installs ESX350-200806201-UG and ESX350-200806202-UG.

[Vinkie]

Hi,

I have a standard installation of VC 2.5 in a VM with SQL EE and I tried all the comments but no luck.

The log indicates that there is a certificate issue.

Failed to initialize: not well-formed (invalid token)

Any help will help.

[rjhunter]

We had the same issue VC 2.5 original build and added ESX 3.5 update 2 servers broke VC. Upgraded to VC 2.5 Update 2 works like a champ now..

[Richard_Claus]

fantastic...i had same issue and thought my database was corrupt. i upgraded vcenter to latest release and problem gone.

thanks so very much!

[beovax]

Tried disabling VMware convertor services, then setting MSSQL as a dependency - no joy

Uninstalled IIS, it now starts up on reboot automatically.

[BLonborg]

Thanks for your suggestion - we discovered we had the same issue this morning. By looking at the log file you mentioned, we quickly determined that it database issue. We increased the maximum size for the log file and then we were able to start the VirtualCenter Server service.

[Titho]

I have the same issu and the pb is with the service Administration IIS is started. When you stop this service or to uninstall IIS, the service VMware VirtualCenter Server started.

[tariqali]

Just had this problem after applying update 4 to esx 3.5. Stopping IIS Admin service fixed it for me. IIS Admin restarts on its own once vcenter gets going. Would like to find out why IIS Admin interferes with vcenter server, doesn't make any sense.

[lebron]

Wow!

Thanks tariqali

That was the only solution for me too, but I'd like to know what causing the problem with IIS service issue thought,

and why it interferes with the Vc service

Maybe that's because they're using the same port.