Corrupt NVRAM causes memory allocation failure during vMotion

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• The NVRAM file grows in size (up to 4GB) and can get corrupted
• After a vMotion, the corrupted file causes the virtual machine to fail with the error:
  
  unrecoverable memory allocation failure
  
  
• vMotion attempts initiated by DRS fail and the virtual machine fails with the error:
  
  unrecoverable memory allocation failures at bora/lib/snapshot/snapshotUtil.c:856

Environment

VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Installable
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Embedded
VMware ESX 4.1.x
VMware ESX 4.0.x

Resolution

This issue is resolved in ESX/ESXi 4.0 Update 3 and in an ESX/ESXi 4.1 patch release. For more information, see:

• ESX 4.0 – VMware ESX 4.0 Update 3 Release Notes
• ESXi 4.0 – VMware ESXi 4.0 Update 3 Release Notes
• ESX 4.1 – VMware ESX 4.1 Patch ESX410-201104401-SG: Updates VMkernel, VMX, CIM (1035097)
• ESXi 4.1 – VMware ESXi 4.1 Patch ESXi410-201104401-SG: Updates Firmware (1035108)

Additional Information

VMware ESX 4.1 Patch ESX410-201104401-SG: Updates VMkernel, VMX, CIM
VMware ESXi 4.1 Patch ESXi410-201104401-SG: Updates Firmware