vCenter Server Service Starts Then Stops

[KGoch]

All of the sudden the vCenter Server service has stopped on the vCenter Server box. When we start the service, it immediately stops. We have tried restarting the box as well, but still get the same issue. Any ideas?

[vmroyale]

Hello.

These errors are usually database related. Is your database up and running?

Good Luck!

[JoeLyons]

Agreed, SQL is the 1st port of call

Check your ODBC connection is working.

SQL account is available and working - password is correct.

SQL service is up and running.

Joe

Remember to back EVERYTHING up before you change ANYTHING

and consider awarding points if answers where helpful to you.

[Troy_Clavell]

I agree DB problem. Possibly out of disk space. Check you event logs on your vCenter Host, it may point you to the exact problem.

[KGoch]

The ODBC connection is good. The DBA is checking the SQl cluster now.

In event viewer I see these two logs repeating every 2 minutes.

Log 1:

The description for Event ID ( 1000 ) in Source ( VMware VirtualCenter Server ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: Log directory: C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Local Settings\Application Data\VMware\vpx..

Log 2:

The description for Event ID ( 1000 ) in Source ( VMware VirtualCenter Server ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: Starting VMware VirtualCenter 2.5.0 build-147633.

Any ideas?

[Troy_Clavell]

you don't happen to have IIS running on your vCenter Host do you? If so, stop it.

[KGoch]

IIS is not installed on the vCenter box.

[JoeLyons]

Since you mention a cluster can we assume you are usnig MSSQL 2005 clustered on another set of boxes?

Could the cluster have failed over and then you had the issue?

If so is there a permissions difference on the other node with the account?

Can you get the VC DB failed back to the original node?

or is there anything else in the VC box's event viewer?

Joe

Remember to back EVERYTHING up before you change ANYTHING

and consider awarding points if answers where helpful to you.

[KGoch]

Oops, sorry if I made it sound like its clustered. The vCenter box is not clustered. We are running with only one vCenter box.

(We will probably be clustering after this incident is resolved to prevent snafus like this)

[JoeLyons]

Understood, but you mentioed your DBA was checking the "SQL cluster" which is what I was refering to,

Is SQL on the local VC server aswell?

Remember to back EVERYTHING up before you change ANYTHING

and consider awarding points if answers where helpful to you.

[KGoch]

Oh, sorry. Yes SQL is clustered. There are no issues with the SQL cluster as all of our other systems relying on DBs in the cluster are running fine. So nothing has failed over there. I am still waiting to hear back if the DB itself is running/connecting. But the SQL system as a whole is running fine.

[vmroyale]

All of the sudden the vCenter Server service has stopped on the vCenter Server box.

Has anything changed on this system lately? Windows Updates?

Anything interesting in the vpxd logs?

[JoeLyons]

It's still worth checking the points in my previous post as VC is not cluster aware like other apps. so the cluster may have failed over, other apps are runing fine but VC needs a service restart to create the DB connection again.

If the server you failed over to has different security settings it would explain the error in event viewer, hence the " can you get it failed back" query to test.

Joe

Remember to back EVERYTHING up before you change ANYTHING

and consider awarding points if answers where helpful to you.

[KGoch]

In looking at the vpxd logs they all are "recent" the oldest one goes back to 11:51a today. THere are a ton of dmp files though with the first one being modified at 2:28am last night. At 2:28am last night is when the first of the two repeating vCenter errors started occuring. Oddly enough at 2:25am the box was restarted. Talking to engineers now to figure out why they restarted it.

This logged occured about 15 minutes before reboot and is the only suspcious log of the night.

The configuration information of the performance library "C:\WINDOWS\system32\perfts.dll" for the "TermService" service does not match the trusted performance library information stored in the registry. The functions in this library will not be treated as trusted.

[KGoch]

Any issues with just doing a reinstall, rather than troubleshooting reinstall.

[Troy_Clavell]

you can see this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932813 for the error.

However, at this point if your DB is healthy, you may want to do a reinstall of vCenter. Just backup your DB before you start.

[KGoch]

Did an uninstall then a reinstall of vCenter Server and no dice. Still the same issue. Service stops as soon as starts.

[KGoch]

Also,

I saw this thread:

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/36941;jsessionid=54C6CD54F6437E64E4F0B23762607A41

Even though Im not getting the same second error message as that user, I went to check my log files on the SQL DB and they were set to restricted growth and had hit the restriction, so I changed the settings to allow growth, and the restarted the vCenter box. Still getting the same thing.

[Troy_Clavell]

you are 100% sure that the account you use for your ODBC settings has db_owner on the virtual center DB within SQL?

[Troy_Clavell]

also, check you system logs in event view as well... They may have information.