VMotion Failure - stumped!

[bradley4681]

Thought I'd give this a go in the forums before opening a case...

I have 2 clusters, 1 is 3.5 and another is 4.0 and all are ESXi. My VC is 4.0 as well but the problem was occurring before upgrading. Periodical VMotion fails between the different hosts at 10% with the following error:

A general system error occurred:

The VMotion failed because the ESX

hosts were not able to connect over

the VMotion network. Please check

your VMotion network settings and

physical network configuration.

The only way to fix it is to go into advanced configuration settings, migrate and change "Migrate.Enabled" to 0 and then clicking ok and going back and setting it to 1 which was recommended in a KB. So I know how to fix it but what I'd like to know if why it keeps happening, why there seems to be no pattern, and why only on some hosts but not the other. When these servers were upgraded recently it was a completely fresh install to ESXi 3.5 or ESXi 4.0 depending on the cluster. However this problem existed on the older versions before the upgrade and before using ESXi

Cheers,

Bradley Sessions

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[Chamon]

Can you check the physical switch. It could be a network issue for your vMotion pNIC.

[bradley4681]

Check it for what?

The VMotion network is on the same switch as the guests and I believe if it was the switch then changing the configuration settings above would not have any effect.

Cheers,

Bradley Sessions

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[Troy_Clavell]

yes, it's a known issue as described in http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1013150. However, have you been successful in your vmkping results? There are some examples of what may be causing the problem, but if you have followed the recommend steps, you may try opening an SR to get an official answer as to why this is happening.

You are saying when you set the Migrate.Enabled to 1 it resets itself back to 0 after a period of time?

[bradley4681]

Thats the KB I used to figure out how to fix the problem. I'm just wondering whats casuing it since its not explained in the KB article. I can correct the problem but it comes back again and again, even after upgrades and fresh installs.

Cheers,

Bradley Sessions

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