SQL Server 2005 experiencing General Network Errors and A transport-level error has occurred ... HELP :)

[mshe]

Hello Everyone,

I have a ESX Server which hosts several Windows 2003 SP2 partitions and a SQL Server 2005 (Windows 2003). I'm experincing random connectivity issues and my .NET applications are throwing the following exceptions:

Error message 1

[ODBC SQL Server Driver][DBNETLIB] General Network error. Check your network documentation

Error message 2

System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: A transport-level error has occurred when sending the request to the server. (provider: TCP Provider, error: 0 - An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.)

CPU usage seems to be quite low on the SQL Server, averaging 10 - 15%.

Has anyone seen anything similar?

I read a post about switching the network driver to vlance - but vlance is only 10mbit. Is the e1000 a suitable alternative too? How do I configure my SQL partition to use e1000 in ESX 3.5?

Any other ideas, comments, etc? Thanks!

[marcelo_soares]

Don't know if this would help, but you can try changing the driver to e1000. Follow KB http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1003020 (for doing the change, enter to your ESX server using SSH and have the VM powered off - I prefer to do this with the VM removed from inventory and after that re-add it again).

Changing to vlance driver is an option also, an does not matter it is a 10MBit driver, the network throughput will be the same for all drivers (ESX provide the same to all VMs does not matter the driver). If you want to try it, you can remove VMware Tools or install it without the network vmxnet2 driver.

Good luck to you,

Marcelo Soares

VMWare Certified Professional 310/410

Technical Support Engineer

Globant Argentina

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[geddam]

Provider here is TCP....This error will show if a connection is drawn from the connection pool and the connection to the server has been lost. Is SQL is patched upto SP3....

1.Above this...is it a recurring issue or it comes once in a while....?

2. Do you run any backups for this box at VM level or SQL level? To be more precise, does this issue occur whenever a backup runs?

3. You can change the driver to e1000.....follow KB::

Note: 64 Bit VM’s uses the e1000 driver as default.

Thanks,,

Ramesh. Geddam,

VCP 3&4, MCTS(Hyper-V).

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[mshe]

So I guess the question is - why are connections being dropped... It is a recurring issue - it is happens random quite frequently.

All VMs are hosted on the same box, therefore traffic would be going through the virtual adapters? All machines are on the same subnet.

SQL Server is Build 2005.90.4035 (SP3).

[BillInPA]

We are a software developer, with a server product which uses ODBC.

A customer is having this exact issue, occuring perhaps once a week. They are running win 2003 server on vmware partitions.

We have been fighting it for a couple months, so any help is appreciated and ASAP for sure.

We have purchased an incident with microsoft, and they have yet to really come up with a solution.

Is there a way we can get direct support from vmware to our customer?

They may in fact have vmware support, I will check on that.

In the mean time, has this been resolved? Did changing the network adapter help in any way?

Thanks in advance.