The VMware VirtualCenter Server service hung on starting

[doubleH]

Howdy,

Everytime I restart my VC server (physical) I get the error message

Event Type: Error

Event Source: Service Control Manager

Event Category: None

Event ID: 7022

Date: 11/26/2007

Time: 10:06:06 AM

User: N/A

Computer: CORVUS

Description:

The VMware VirtualCenter Server service hung on starting.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at .

I have to manually start the service. Anyone else have this problem? I am running 2.0.2 update 1 on W2K3 R2 SP2.

Thanks

[jhanekom]

You can find more details on the specific error that is occurring by looking at the vpx*.log files in C:\Windows\Temp. Can you take a look at the two or three files with the latest time stamp to see what the error is that you're getting?

One possibility is that you might be running your SQL instance on the same machine, and that SQL is not up yet when VC is starting. In that case, you will need to establish a dependency on SQL for the VC service. There are many resources available on the Internet on how to do this, but in most cases it should not be necessary.

[doubleH]

thank you for pointing me in the right direction. yes sql 2005 is installed on the virtual centre server. here are the results of the error log....

Log for VMware VirtualCenter, pid=2232, version=2.0.2, build=build-61426, option=Release, section=2

2007-11-26 10:03:03.359 'App' 2488 info Current working directory: C:\WINDOWS\system32

2007-11-26 10:03:03.359 'App' 2488 info Initializing SSL context

2007-11-26 10:03:04.312 'App' 2488 info Vmacore::InitSSL: doVersionCheck = true, handshakeTimeoutUs = 120000000

2007-11-26 10:03:04.484 'BaseLibs' 2488 info NFC connection accept timeout: 180000 milliseconds

2007-11-26 10:03:04.484 'BaseLibs' 2488 info NFC request timeout: 180000 milliseconds

2007-11-26 10:03:04.484 'BaseLibs' 2488 info NFC read timeout: 60000 milliseconds

2007-11-26 10:03:04.484 'BaseLibs' 2488 info NFC write timeout: 600000 milliseconds

2007-11-26 10:03:04.515 'App' 2488 info Starting VMware VirtualCenter 2.0.2 build-61426

2007-11-26 10:03:04.515 'App' 2488 info Log directory: C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\vpx.

2007-11-26 10:03:04.515 'App' 2488 info Account name: SYSTEM

2007-11-26 10:03:04.515 'App' 2488 info Enabled low-frag process heap.

2007-11-26 10:03:04.515 'App' 2488 info Enabled low-frag crt heap.

2007-11-26 10:03:04.515 'App' 2488 info 34 max LROs

2007-11-26 10:03:04.515 'App' 2488 info 6 reserved internal LROs

2007-11-26 10:03:04.515 'App' 2488 info 6 reserved blocker LROs

2007-11-26 10:03:04.515 'App' 2488 info 6 reserved short LROs

2007-11-26 10:03:04.515 'App' 2488 info 4 reserved long LROs

2007-11-26 10:03:04.515 'App' 2488 info 600-second task lifetime

--2007-11-26 10:03:11.953 'App' 2488 error --ODBC error: (42000) - [ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Cannot open user default database. Login failed.

2007-11-26 10:03:11.953 'App' 2488 error No pool found with id 1

2007-11-26 10:03:11.953 'App' 2488 error Failed to intialize VMware VirtualCenter. Shutting down...

[jhanekom · Accepted solution]

That certainly looks like SQL's not ready when VC starts. The way the default service settings are with the newer VC releases (I think as of VC 2.0.2), the service should automatically attempt a restart after 5 minutes. You can verify this by getting the properties of the "VMware VirtualCenter" service in the Services control panel applet, and looking at the Recovery tab.

If you want to avoid this problem altogether, you can set up a dependency on the SQL Service starting. It involves some low-level registry editing. The following article describes the process in detail: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/193888

In a nutshell, you will want to do the following:

• Open the Services control panel applet and locate your SQL Service

• Double-click on the service to open its properties page - note down the value next to "Service name" (for example, MSSQL$SQLEXPRESS)

• Open RegEdit and go to HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\vpxd

• Double-click on the DependOnService REG_MULTI_SZ value

• Enter the name of the SQL Service you recorded above on the blank line at the bottom of the existing entries

• Ensure that you press enter at the end of the line so that there is exactly one blank line under the entries

• Click on OK to save the changes

[doubleH]

great work! made the change, rebooted and it works like a champ. thanks!

[CDPHE]

Thank you jhanekom! You saved my arse. I have no idea what happened other than installing a couple of Windows updates, but I have been banging my head for 2 hours to figure out how to fix this.

You rock!!

Doug