VMware Cloud Community
Gene_H
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Error 15 file not found press any key to continue after ESX 4.1 remediation

VM host was at 4.1.0, 320092.  I tried remediating to 4.1.0, 348481 using vCenter Update Manager.

After the system had applied the patches and was going thru the reboot process I received the following error:

Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

uppermem 819200

kernel /vmlinuz ro root=UUID=ceadc074-b397-adcb-7b7604a8ab4a mem=800M quiet

[Linux-bzImage, setup-0x1e00, size=0x179cdc]

initrd /initrd.img

Error 15: File not found

Press any key to continue...

ESX 4.1 File Not Found Error.JPG

Reply
0 Kudos
22 Replies
Gene_H
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I found a solution that is loosely based upon KB article  1004966

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100496...

I continued on and went into the Troubleshooting mode.

2011 VM error.jpg

From there I logged in and issued a "reboot" command.  The host then booted up clean.

Once it was up, I used Update Manager to rescan the host and then to re-apply the patches that were listed as not applied the first time.

Gene

Reply
0 Kudos
VirtualSingh
Contributor
Contributor

Sounds good and glad it worked for you. Also thank you for sharing the solution.

Good job Smiley Wink

Reply
0 Kudos
chengh
Contributor
Contributor

Hello,

I met exactly the same problem. After I pressed enter it showed me the option to boot in troubleshooting mode.

But when I select enter troubleshooting mode, I got error messages:

Problem creating CIMvmw_swmgtProviderEnabled option

VmkCtl and VMKernal mismarch

Signagure mismatch between VmkCtl ( Jan 12 2011 17:06:44) and VMKernel  (_Unknown)

I type enter, it shows me the command line.

But after reboot it still gave me same error message:

initrd /initrd.img

Error 15:File not Found

Press any key to continue ...

Any idea?

Reply
0 Kudos
Gene_H
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I had the same screen that you did.

Signature mismatch.jpg

When I pressed Enter, it gave me a command prompt.  I think I had to login with "root".

I then issued the reboot command, it rebooted and booted "normally"

When I went back to Update Manager, it showed that two updates were still outstanding.

I applied these and rebooted one final time.

Gene

Reply
0 Kudos
EshuunDara
Contributor
Contributor

Having the same problem.  Updated some hosts on Friday, came in on Monday, moved a powered off VM to the upgraded host and it refused to start up.  I rebooted the ESX server and got this message.  Ended up reinstalling vSphere on the box...  Curious to see what would happen, I rebooted a second system in the cluster, and again, same stupid error.  I've tried rebooting the hosts, but I still have no network connectivity to them, so I can't try and remediate them a second time from vCenter.  😕

Reply
0 Kudos
chengh
Contributor
Contributor

I did the same thing. Type enter then login with root. and then type reboot command.

But after reboot, still no luck, same problem again.

Tired to fight it, plan to reinstall tomorrow.


Reply
0 Kudos
GreyhoundHH
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Same issue here. Upgrade of ESX 4.1 to 4.1u1 failed and upon the next reboot the system got stuck with the same error. Booting to the troubleshoorting mode and manually rebooting it didn't work for me 😕

Are there any other suggestions before I go on to completely reinstall ths system? I noticed that I'm not offered to perform an upgrade when I boot with the latest ESX DVD. So I assume there's no vaild ESX 4.1 installation that can be found?

Any help appreciated.

Reply
0 Kudos
mrachul10
Contributor
Contributor

Same issue here too.  Any ideas?  I've tried using the esxcfg-boot options but none of them worked.  This happened right after we installed the patches that were released yesterday.

Thanks,

Michael

Reply
0 Kudos
teksyc0m
Contributor
Contributor

Samething happened to me after applying the ESX 4.0 updates from yesterday.  In my case the /boot mount point was near 100% full.  I've scheduled an upgrade to 4.1.

Gil

Reply
0 Kudos
mrachul10
Contributor
Contributor

I called support and it was the boot folder as well.  It was nearly full and once we moved/deleted some files it booted up without any problems.

Reply
0 Kudos
GreyhoundHH
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Ok, I did a clean reinstall of ESX 4.1u1 yesterday to save time.

But what I've noticed now:

I took a look at a second host, that I planned to update yesterday. This host was previously upgraded from ESX 3.5u5 to ESX 4.1 and /boot is 85% in use while /boot on another ESX 3.5 host is only 33% in use. I guess this is because of the option to boot the upgraded ESX 4.1 as well in the old ESX 3.5 Service Console, right?

I'm pretty sure that the update to ESX 4.1u1 on my second host will also fail. Is there nothing I can do but performing a fresh intallation of ESX 4.1u1? Is there a way to get rid of the old ESX 3.5 stuff on an upgraded ESX 4.x?

Thx

Reply
0 Kudos
6pk2go
Contributor
Contributor

I had the same exact problem.  I booted in troubleshooting mode ran cd to boot folder and the .img is highlighted in red.  I could see that the .img is linked to a -194.ESX.img file.  I ran a ln to a older -164.img file rebooted and it came up sucessfully.  then I brought it back out of maintenance mode in VCenter and it showed up with a new build number ESX 4.0.0 360236.  Very scary.  I had to do this to all the hosts I remediated.

Reply
0 Kudos
ksuchewie
Contributor
Contributor

I am having this problem as well.  currently at 4.0 294855.  can anyone help?

[root@esx02 boot]# df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/cciss/c0d0p2     4.9G  1.8G  2.9G  38% /
/dev/cciss/c0d0p1      99M   53M   42M  56% /boot
none                  391M     0  391M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/cciss/c0d0p7     2.0G  131M  1.7G   8% /var/log

[root@esx02 boot]# ls -l
total 28591
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        26861 Aug  9  2009 config-2.4.21-57.ELvmnix
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        37236 Jan  6 20:23 config-2.6.18-194.ESX
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root         1024 Dec 31  2009 grub
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root      9841447 Apr 11 14:32 initrd-2.4.21-57.ELvmnix.img
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root     11064642 Apr 11 14:32 initrd-2.4.21-57.ELvmnix.img-dbg
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root       142512 Sep  7  2009 initrd-2.4.21-57.ELvmnix.img-sc
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           25 Apr 11 10:26 initrd.img -> initrd-2.6.18-194.ESX.img
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          615 Mar 21  2008 kernel.h
drwx------    2 root     root        12288 Jan 25  2008 lost+found
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           28 Aug 14  2008 System.map -> System.map-2.4.21-57.ELvmnix
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root       621581 Aug  9  2009 System.map-2.4.21-57.ELvmnix
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root      1013675 Jan  6 20:23 System.map-2.6.18-194.ESX
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root         1024 Dec 31  2009 trouble
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root      3452300 Aug  9  2009 vmlinux-2.4.21-57.ELvmnix
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           22 Apr 11 10:26 vmlinuz -> vmlinuz-2.6.18-194.ESX
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root      1375481 Aug  9  2009 vmlinuz-2.4.21-57.ELvmnix
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root      1553372 Jan  6 20:23 vmlinuz-2.6.18-194.ESX

Reply
0 Kudos
nkrishnan
Expert
Expert

Before doing patching and update to next update release of ESX4.1 make sure that you have atleast 100MB free in /boot . Based on the patches it may have to re-generate the initrd and vmlinuz and it required disk space for it.

Also you can try it esxcfg-init -r -> it try to restore the VMkernel   - I am not which are the condition it will restore it.

esxcfg-boot -b -it update the bootcfg

--Nithin
Reply
0 Kudos
Fongen
Contributor
Contributor

Thank you, 6pk2go! You just saved my day.

I had the exact same problem, and followed your tip. At first I did not understand, because I am not very familiar with Linux commands, but you put me on the right track. So, if there are others like me, here are the steps I did in detail:

1. Enter in Troubleshooting mode and log in as root

2. cd /boot

3. ls -l (see the red blinking initrd.img -> initrd-2.6.18-194.ESX.img)

4. rm /boot/initrd.img

5. ln -s  initrd-2.6.18-164.img initrd.img

6. Shutdown -r now

Reply
0 Kudos
Sreejesh_D
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

its a known issue. please refer the KB - http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1004574 for workaround.

Reply
0 Kudos
PalmerEldritch
Contributor
Contributor

I ran into this issue, today, and tried a couple other fixes before I found this thread.  It appears that those "fixes" completely filled the /boot partition, because now I get a PSOD when I try to enter troubleshooting mode, and it displays a message of "No place on disk to dump data."  So, is there any way for me to get in there and free up some space on the boot partition, without having access to Troubleshooting mode?

Thanks!

Reply
0 Kudos
Fongen
Contributor
Contributor

I am currently out of the office, and will return 26. April 2011. I will only occasionally be reading e-mail in this period.

Med vennlig hilsen / Best regards,

Øystein Fongen

Reply
0 Kudos
PalmerEldritch
Contributor
Contributor

Never mind.  I booted from a live distro and used some of the instructions from this KB article: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100790...

Reply
0 Kudos