WIndows 2008 R2 / 2012 R2 VMs losing IP address after reboots

[pablo357]

We get issues with VMs occasionally losing their IP addresses following a reboot. Turning the Device Status | Connected setting to off then on again resolves the issue (but this obviously causes issues when critical servers exhibit this issue, especially out of hours).

This issue has been discussed on various occasions within the Communities and within the KB, eg...

VMware KB: Virtual machine is assigned an invalid IP address after a reboot

Whenever I check the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces registry area, there are multiple GUIDs, which are likely to relate to legacy changes to either IP Address / Switching from E1000 to VMXNET3 and removing and re-creating the NICs set-up.

In addition to the above KB article, I have seen other articles that state there is a fix by the creation of a new REG key as follows:-

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When this problem occurs, the ProxyArp device responds to all ARP requests.

To work around this problem, we can turn off gratuitous ARP by setting the value of the ARPRetryCount registry entry to 0. To do this, follow these steps.

1.  Click Start , type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.

2.  Locate the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters

3.  On the Edit menu, point to New , and then click DWORD Value .

4.  Type ArpRetryCount .

5.  Right-click the ArpRetryCount registry entry, and then click Modify .

6.  In the Value data box, type 0 , and then click OK .

7.  Exit Registry Editor.

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What I would be grateful for feedback on is:-

1. Do I need to create the new DWORD entry within each of the GUIDs?

2. Is there a way to completely wipe a VMs networking config and create the Adapter from scratch along with the necessary static IP info within the OS? I've attempted to do this previously but there is always a lot of legacy info left within the registry and also, even if I delete an Adapter within the VM | Edit Settings and re-create it, it always increments the name within the OS (eg VMXNET3 -> VMXNET3 #2 -> VMXNET3 #3 etc).

3. We have also read other articles relating to removing legacy Hidden Network Adapter Devices within Device Manager.

Is there a definitive fix for this issue that any of you know reliably resolves the issue?

Thank you.

[BenLiebowitz]

What type of vNIC are you using?  E1000 or VMXNET3?  

I've seen this issue happen in the past with the e1000 driver.  I recommend adding a 2nd NIC with the VMXNET3 driver, moving the IP to the new NIC and then remove the e1000 NIC. 

[pablo357]

Majority of our servers are VMXNET3 as we moved from E1000 to VMXNET3 last year. There are a handful still on E1000 but we have seen even the VMXNET3 machines experiencing the issue.

Isn't there a clean up (at an OS level)  that is required when you switch Adapter types?

Thanks

[akarydas2]

Try also to disable the APIPA on all your network interfaces. There are times that the APIPA gets activated before windows validate the assigned IP on the interfaces.

Brgds