cannot start and stop vm's after a few days.

[vivithemage]

If I go to shut down a VM, or reboot it, etc. It will hang. the VM becomes unresponsive in the GUI, cannot SSH anymore, etc. I have to reboot the host to correct the issue. I am running ESXI 7.0 Update 2a on a Dell R320. I am using the standard ISO, I recently did a clean install with no history, which did not fix it. I only have 8 VM's, and about 4-8GB each. With about 192GB available on the host. And each VM only has about 1 CPU, maybe 2. With a 20 core processor. 

The issue seems to crop up after a few days of running time.

I am unsure where to begin troubleshooting why it's happening. I ran the dell diagnostics, and everything came back good. 

[IRIX201110141 · Accepted solution]

Does your Host boot from a (Dual) SD Card or USB?

If so..... welcome to the club. Please see

https://communities.vmware.com/t5/ESXi-Discussions/SD-Boot-issue-Solution-in-7-x/m-p/2852027#M276515

[vivithemage]

I just have a USB drive it boots to. What log can I check to see if it's throwing /bootbank errors?

[IRIX201110141]

On the ESXi Screen press ALT+F11 and look for red error of "latency" and "bootbank".

Regards
Joerg

[vivithemage]

yeah, that looks like my problem:

2021-07-16T08:34:36.105Z cpu6:2097381)ScsiPath: 8058: Cancelled Cmd(0x45b8c1c2ccc0) 0x0, cmdId.initiator=0x45389a69bc58 CmdSN 0x0 from world 0 to path "vmhba32:C0:T0:L0". Cmd count Active
2021-07-16T08:34:36.105Z cpu3:2110157)VMW_SATP_LOCAL: satp_local_updatePath:856: Failed to update path "vmhba32:C0:T0:L0" state. Status=Transient storage condition, suggest retry
2021-07-16T08:34:41.619Z cpu0:2097380)ScsiPath: 8058: Cancelled Cmd(0x45b905015fc0) 0x25, cmdId.initiator=0x453892c9a888 CmdSN 0x1738b from world 0 to path "vmhba32:C0:T0:L0". Cmd count A
2021-07-16T08:34:41.619Z cpu0:2097380)WARNING: NMP: nmp_DeviceRequestFastDeviceProbe:237: NMP device "mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0" state in doubt; requested fast path state update...
2021-07-16T08:34:41.619Z cpu0:2097380)ScsiDeviceIO: 4315: Cmd(0x45b905015fc0) 0x25, cmdId.initiator=0x453892c9a888 CmdSN 0x1738b from world 0 to dev "mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0" failed H:0x5 ‌‌
2021-07-16T08:34:41.619Z cpu0:2097380)Queued:2

Following this guide though, and trying to run the fix though, I get an error:

[root@localhost:~] esxcli system settings advanced list -o /UserVars/ToolsRamdisk
Unable to find option ToolsRamdisk
[root@localhost:~]

[IRIX201110141]

vmhba32:C0:T0:L0

is your USB device.  So you can line up in the queue.

Regards,
Joerg

[vivithemage]

Yeah, thanks for helping point that out. That fix might only be for HPE servers that I linked?

[IRIX201110141]

No. All of them are effected.   Follow the KB and blog articles and redirect  Scratch, Syslog, Locker and enable the RAMDISK.

Regards,
Joerg

[vivithemage]

thanks, I followed this guide to enable ramdisk until the patch comes out:

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/83376?lang=en_US