Virtual Machine power on stalls and cannot be cancelled

[rphilippe]

Hello,

Actually it's all in the topic. Sometimes when I start a VM, a task starts and displays "In Progress". Everything seems good except that the tasks never finishes and cannot be cancelled. The only way I found to cancel it is to reboot the server.

As anyone already have this issue ?

[esiebert7625]

You do not have to reboot the server for that, below is a process to kill a stuck VM.

How can I kill a stuck virtual machine?

ESX 3.0 method

o Login to the service console

o You can check the VM state by typing “vmware-cmd /”

o You will be prompted if you want to include a screenshot of the VM, send an NMI to the VM and send a ABORT to the VM, you must answer Yes to the ABORT question to kill the VM. The entire process will take about 5-10 minutes to run. It will create a tar archive in the directory you run it in.

fyi...if you find this post helpful, please award points using the Helpful/Correct buttons...thanks

[VirtualNoitall]

Hello,

you can force a vm to stop by issueing the following command in the Service console :vmware-cmd <vm-cfg-path> stop Hard

Where <vm-cfg-path> is the full path to the virtual machine's config file. Remember, this is like pulling the power cord on the virtual machine but so would rebooting the host. The above should let you stop the vm without having to reboot the host.

Does the vm acutally power up and get on the network? can you ping it?

Have a look through your logs as well to see if anything stands out. Note the time of the power on and see if there are any corresponding log entries of note.

[rphilippe]

When I use vmware-cmd :

VMControl error -11: No such virtual machine

And the VM is not in the ps, the vm-support -x doesn't list this VM ...

This one seems quit stuck !

[VirtualNoitall]

Hey,

Can you use vmware-cmd to try to start the virtual machine?

[rphilippe]

When I try to start :

\# vmware-cmd GateProtect.vmx start

VMControl error -11: No such virtual machine

When I try to check the heartbeat :

#vmware-cmd GateProtect.vmx getheartbeat

VMControl error -8: Invalid operation for virtual machine's current state

[VirtualNoitall]

"vmware-cmd GateProtect.vmx start "

Hello,

You need to use the full filesystem path to the virtual machine starting at /

Give it a go and let us know what happens.

[rphilippe]

\

1. vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/NetApp\ Storage/GateProtect/GateProtect.vmx start

VMControl error -11: No such virtual machine

I had tried this before but didn't work two

[rphilippe]

Ok ... I found a way to get the information :

\# vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/7f8c318d-ac4ca300/GateProtect/GateProtect.vmx getstate

getstate() = off

\# vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/7f8c318d-ac4ca300/GateProtect/GateProtect.vmx start

start() = 1

But it didn't clear out the VCenter task ...

[VirtualNoitall]

Hello,

It is still not right which is why you get the error message you are.

Issue the following command to get the list of virtual machines and their full path:

vmware-cmd -l

This will list your virtual machines and give you the full path. Then using the full path given to you in the above command try to start the virtual machine with the command mentioned in the earlier posts

[VirtualNoitall]

awesome. Did the virtual machine start successfully and the task is just hanging around?

[rphilippe]

The task is still hanging around, the VM has not started.

This VM is only test, is there any way to turn it off kill the task and delete the VM ?

[VirtualNoitall]

Hello,

You can force the virtual machine off with the vmware-cmd command doing a "vmware-cmd /path/to/config/file stop hard"

Not sure if that will also clear up the job though. Can't hurt to try.

Do you see anything in the window were you kicked off the virtual machine startup?

Have you had a chance to check the logs?

[rphilippe]

No I was unable to take control over the VMs. I stopped it hard and restarted the VC service this cleared the tasks without having to reboot.

Unfortuanately I still don't really know where it came from !

[PotiPotato]

If you are running VirtualCenter, then this problem is a symptom of your VMWare VirtualCenter Server service stopping during the start process. Check to see if this service is still running. If so, then you may need to restart it. In my experience with this issue, this will clear the "in progress" task and will allow you to start the VM again.

As I've noticed that this service stops occasionally, has anyone else had the same problem? Is there a fix for it?