vCenter 5.1 does not see Host CPU Host Mem or Guest Mem on 4.0 hosts

[SubterraneanHom]

Pretty much in the title.

vCenter was upgraded back in September or so to 5.1, and there are mixed clusters running: 4.0 esx, 5.0 U1, and 5.1.

On the 4.0 ESX hosts, we do not see the CPU/Host Mem or Guest Mem performance stats.  They all show "0".

Screen shot attached.

We've tried restarting the management services.  We've also rebooted the hosts.  No luck.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

[Troy_Clavell]

i'm not saying this will resolve the issue, but it may be worth a try.  Disconnect and remove the host from vCenter.  This will cleanup the host record in your vCenter DB.  After the host has been removed, "add host" back to vCenter.

You can test this theory on one of the hosts and if it works, maybe do the rest, at your convenience

[gumbyblake]

I am seeing the same issue.

Disconnect and reconnect of host does not fix the issue.

In my case the problem haoppens on ESX 4.0 Update 1a hosts, and Update 4 hosts.

I have a case open with VMWare support and will update if I get an answer.

CB

[SubterraneanHom]

Thanks, I also have a ticket opened with VMware.  They've been very slow to respond, must be my level of support contract.

This is now showing up on a 5.1 host as well.

[gumbyblake]

Interesting - VMWare support has been extremely slow for me too. My case has been open for more than a week.

Will keep you updated when I have more information.

[gumbyblake]

VMware support advised they have replicated my issue in their lab & are working on a resolution.

Regards

CB

[gumbyblake]

Eventual response from VMWare Support for the issue:

"In vsphere 5.1 release there is a memory compression(zipped memory  stats) check that was introduced.  The "zipped" counter stores the stats  from the Memory Compression for the VM. This feature was introduced in vSphere  4.1 and is not available for prior release. Absence of this feature/counter in  ESX/ESXi 4.0 is causing the vCenter to drop the stats while performing the  zipped memory check.

Prior to 5.1(vCenter) releases never checked  for this "zipped memory" counter, Hence did not encounter this issue.

The workaround is to upgrade the ESX/ESXi hosts running 4.0 to 4.1 or  later."

Regards

CB

[SubterraneanHom]

Well,

That doesn't explain the 5.1 host that is exhibiting the same issue.

[gumbyblake]

I have not seen the error since I upgraded my hosts to v5.1. Vcentre = build 799731, hosts build = 799733.

I will keep an eye on it to see if the issue returns.

CB

[SubterraneanHom]

Thanks, that's the exact version I'm on.  I'm sending logs to VMware tech support.

[gumbyblake]

Very strange, let me know what support suggests. I was planning to do the v5.10a install if I saw the problem again.

The 5.10a takes the vcentre build to 880471.

CB

[gumbyblake]

Upgraded to the 880471 build, have not seen the issue since.

Advsied by VMWare Support that there is now a KB for the issue:

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2038686

Regards

CB

[exploitationine]

Hi everybody,

Got the same issue here with 5.1 Hosts.

It happened to many of my hosts in different clusters.(All in 5.1 by the way).

Support didn t investigate that much considering i had storage issues which should be solved first.

The known work around is to restart managment Agent in CLI:

/sbin/services.sh restart

But this is not a solution to this issue and its side effects are really annoying (HA and DRS focusing to gather Vms on remaining visible Hosts) which kills perforance because of unbalanced cluster.

Impacted ESX isn taken in consideration at all by vcenter.

I think i m going to open an other case with vmware support wishing they have a real answer this time.

Thanks to those who can provide some help.

Jean-Michel

[shteynman]

+1,

have any solutions?

[schepp]

shteynman wrote:

+1,

have any solutions?

Restart the management services, described in this kb: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1003490

[shteynman]

I know that, But this is not a solution to this issue and its side effects are really annoying (HA and DRS focusing to gather Vms on remaining visible Hosts) which kills perforance because of unbalanced cluster.

[Raphael_J]

I have the same issue with some hosts in different clusters. Both vCenter and hosts have 5.1 version.

I installed the hosts with HP released vSphere 5.1. Did you used normal installation support or branded one ? I'm wondering about HP tools...

[shteynman]

I used branded HP image from vmware site

[exploitationine]

Same Here,

We're using VMware-ESXi-5.1.0-799733-HP-5.32.5, HP Esxi5.1 base image .

I dunno if it is related though.

[vmhelp201110141]

Hi,  We had a same problem  on  vCenter 5.1.0.b. I have  dissonnect the ESXi Host from vcenter and reconected .after that everything fine.

Regards,

Surya