ESX/ESXi host disconnects from vCenter Server randomly

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• The ESX/ESXi host goes into a Not Responding or Disconnected state and then connects back to vCenter Server after few seconds
• In vpxa logs or hostd logs, you see backtrace similar to:
  
  [2011-10-03 12:01:09.582 1F1B8B90 info 'App' opID=eacf42c3-4b] [VpxLRO] -- BEGIN task-internal-42 -- -- vpxapi.VpxaService.searchDatastore -- 52421f84-1d50-b56a-c835-6a355f639d85
  [2011-10-03 12:01:09.583 1F1B8B90 verbose 'App' opID=eacf42c3-4b] [VpxaDatastoreContext] Resolved URL sanfs://vmfs_uuid:4ce680af-0a04ae9a-692e-842b2b46cde6/ to localPath /vmfs/volumes/4ce680af-0a04ae9a-692e-842b2b46cde6/
  [2011-10-03 12:01:09.666 1F1B8B90 info 'Libs' opID=eacf42c3-4b] Unicode_AllocWithLength: Error: Couldn't convert invalid buffer [FDM-0903\xDC/\xEB\xF5\xFF\xF5_|0-48D1-A1DB-0B67B2C4BA88-7-55f2002-VCENTER] from UTF-8 to Unicode.
  [2011-10-03 12:01:09.666 1F1B8B90 error 'App' opID=eacf42c3-4b] Failed to generate core dump: Fork failed: 38
  [2011-10-03 12:01:09.666 1F1B8B90 panic 'App' opID=eacf42c3-4b]
  
  Panic: PANIC /build/mts/release/bora-340981/bora/lib/unicode/unicodeCommon.c:384
  
  Backtrace:
  [00] rip 095de643
  [01] rip 094c796e
  [02] rip 0948141e
  [03] rip 09607040
  [04] rip 095ba227
  [05] rip 092e0047
  [06] rip 086aaab1
  [07] rip 0948f6c8
  [08] rip 0948f81e
  [09] rip 094c9f2b
  [10] rip 094ca216
  [11] rip 094cab27
  [12] rip 0961a2df
  [13] rip 0834f3fb
  [14] rip 085dcf9b
  [15] rip 093b1d07
  [16] rip 093b211c
  [17] rip 08528c65
  [18] rip 082b8a47
  [19] rip 084f9bb3
  [20] rip 084ec4b1
  [21] rip 084f394a
  [22] rip 084f39b6
  [23] rip 0850986b
  [24] rip 08254e8e
  [25] rip 0946c2e1
  [26] rip 09460dc5
  [27] rip 09467008
  [28] rip 08254e8e
  [29] rip 0946dd19
  [30] rip 1ea554fb
  [31] rip 1ecf0d1e
  
  [2011-10-03 12:01:09.666 1F1B8B90 panic 'App' opID=eacf42c3-4b] PANIC /build/mts/release/bora-340981/bora/lib/unicode/unicodeCommon.c:384

Environment

VMware ESX 4.1.x
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware ESX Server 3.5.x
VMware ESX 4.0.x
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Installable
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Installable

Cause

This issue occurs if there are non-ASCII characters or corrupt folders in the datastore.

Resolution

To resolve this issue you must delete the corrupt folder.

If you cannot delete the folder from the command line or the datastore browser, migrate the virtual machines from the datastore, wipe the datastore, and then recreate the datastore.

Note: You can find the corrupted folder and the corresponding datastore from the backtrace entry similar to:

] [VpxaDatastoreContext] Resolved URL sanfs://vmfs_uuid:4ce680af-0a04ae9a-692e-842b2b46cde6/ to localPath /vmfs/volumes/4ce680af-0a04ae9a-692e-842b2b46cde6/
Error: Couldn't convert invalid buffer [FDM-0903\xDC/\xEB\xF5\xFF\xF5_|0-48D1-A1DB-0B67B2C4BA88-7-55f2002-VCENTER]