XP vm sometimes unresponsive.

marcgijsman · ‎03-14-2008

Hi All,

We have a VDI cluster with 100+ VD's (XP desktops with sp2) . Sometimes a VD becomes unresponsive, it is not reacheable over the network and the the console within VI client remains black. We have to reset the vm then everything is working again.

The ESX hosts are running 3.5.0 (64607).

VC is running 2.5.0 (64192)

Has anybody seen this before??

admin · ‎03-14-2008

I have seen this before. In fact, recently. The bad part was I made a change and got side tracked so I can not confirm if the changed worked. I do not want to send you on a wild goose chase but do you have power management set in the virtual machine? If so does it stop happing if you disable it?

WP

sgrinker · ‎03-17-2008

We sometimes get similar with a few machines here. I haven't been able to pinpoint the problem yet due to time, but a reboot does typically bring them back up. I believe the issue here is due to any of our various SMS pushes that may require the occasional reboot. Typically what I'll see when looking at the console within the VI client, is a partial Explorer shell that doesn't respond. Basically no icons, no taskbar, no apps, etc. Just the standard blue background. Again though, I haven't had a chance to pinpoint the issue yet whenever it has occured. Then again, I'm not 100% sure it's the same issue as you describe either.

Thanks

Steve

dougdavis22 · ‎03-18-2008

I am having similar issues with some of our VDIs (but not all of them). Users are reporting the same as you i.e. no icons, unresponsive explorer etc etc, and a reset of the VM is all that cures it. I wondered whether it was application related - maybe Java or something? But I notice wponder mentioned about power managament - we've got them set currently to turn the monitor off after 20 mins but nothing else - will this impact it?

Doug.

admin · ‎03-18-2008

Doug,

I think this is the root of the issue. I simply have not had time to set some VMs back to having power management turned on. If someone is willing to do so and report back that would be great. As I mentioned, I hate to send someone chasing an unproven theory especially in produciton. I just have not had a chance to go test it.

WP

dougdavis22 · ‎03-25-2008

wponder,

I have managed to get the VDI's of a team who are using VDM all set to have the power management OFF apart from 2. I am now monitoring this to see if any issues arise this week. I'll let you know what happens.

Doug.

admin · ‎03-25-2008

Doug this is great... thanks for trying this!!

WP

tbrouwer · ‎03-25-2008

I have the same issue when some VM's do their windows updates and attempt to reboot in the middle of the night. The VM will just be a blank blue screen and must be manually restarted for it to work. It only happens with maybe 15% of the XP VMs. Did this with a 2003 server VM as well.

heybuzzz · ‎03-27-2008

I have my power mang turned off and all seems to be well...

dougdavis22 · ‎03-27-2008

WP,

I think I am coming to the conclusion that this is definitely the root cause of these issues. Out of the pool of VDIs I have been testing with this week, the only ones that have had any problems are the ones I had left power management settings active on - all the others have been fine.

Thanks for the initial tip - & hopefully this will help others.

Power Mgmt + VDI = BAD!

Cheers,

Doug.

tbrouwer · ‎03-27-2008

Where is this "Power Management" you guys are referring to?

dougdavis22 · ‎03-27-2008

Start > Settings > Power Options

Just ensuring that everything is set to 'Never' (Turn Off Monitor, Turn Off Hard Disks etc) and ensuring that hibernation is disabled.

Doug.

admin · ‎03-27-2008

Doug,

Thanks for testing this. If could PM me your contact info that would be great. I would like to get a SR opened on this as well as a bug so we can look into it and get some resolution.

Warren