ESXi with broadcom network adapters fails with purple diagnostic screen

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

When ESXi 5.5/6.0 hosts fails with a purple diagnostic screen error [email protected], upgrade the driver and firmware to the latest version.

Symptoms:

• An ESXi 5.5/6.0 host fails with a purple diagnostic screen.
• The network card link fails intermittently.
  
  Note: For additional symptoms and stack entries, see the Additional Information section.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1

Cause

This issue can occur because of a broadcom network card driver or a firmware issue.

Resolution

This is a known issue affecting ESXi 5.5.x and 6.0.x.

 

For 6.0.x

 

This issue is resolved in VMware ESXi 6.0 Driver CD 2.713.30.v60.5 for QLogic Network/iSCSI/FCoE Driver, available at VMware Downloads.

 

For 5.5.x

 

This issue is resolved in VMware ESXi 5.5 Driver CD 2.713.10.v55.4 for QLogic Network/iSCSI/FCoE Driver, available at VMware Downloads.

 

 

To work around this issue, upgrade the driver and firmware to the latest version.

Contact your vendor for latest driver and firmware versions. For more information, see Support Communication - Customer Advisory.

For more information, see: Unable to see NIC device after enabling ROCE for Broadcom bnxtnet driver

Additional Information

The PSOD core dump log and purple screen report a backtrace similar to:

cpu0:8224)@BlueScreen: PCPU 4: no heartbeat (2/2 IPIs received)
cpu0:8224)Code start: 0x418013a00000 VMK uptime: 88:20:47:57.108

cpu0:8224)Saved backtrace from: pcpu 4 Heartbeat NMI
cpu0:8224)0x412208ddba00:[0x418013aaac3a]Util_Udelay@vmkernel#nover+0x2d stack: 0x412208ddba40
cpu0:8224)0x412208ddba40:[0x4180140a72fd][email protected]#9.2.0.0+0xfc stack: 0x
cpu0:8224)0x412208ddbac0:[0x4180140aeaf6][email protected]#9.2.0.0+0xb5 stack: 0x1000000000
cpu0:8224)0x412208ddbaf0:[0x4180140aebe6][email protected]#9.2.0.0+0x75 stack: 0x412208ddbb90
cpu0:8224)0x412208ddbb30:[0x4180140bedde][email protected]#9.2.0.0+0x261 stack: 0x13f6dec0
cpu0:8224)0x412208ddbb80:[0x4180140d868a][email protected]#9.2.0.0+0x419 stack: 0x79
cpu0:8224)0x412208ddbbf0:[0x4180140db7c9][email protected]#9.2.0.0+0x148 stack: 0x80
cpu0:8224)0x412208ddbd70:[0x4180140bc9ca][email protected]#9.2.0.0+0x975 stack: 0x20000f6
cpu0:8224)0x412208ddbde0:[0x418014097813][email protected]#9.2.0.0+0x37e stack: 0x1
cpu0:8224)0x412208ddbeb0:[0x4180140b8728][email protected]#9.2.0.0+0x397 stack: 0x11f985e
cpu0:8224)0x412208ddbf60:[0x418013fb79a3][email protected]#9.2+0x11a stack: 0x0
cpu0:8224)0x412208ddbff0:[0x418013a483df]helpFunc@vmkernel#nover+0x52e stack: 0x0

To be alerted when this document is updated, click the Subscribe to Article link in the Actions box.

For translated version of the article, see:
使用 Broadcom 网络适配器的 ESXi 出现故障并显示紫色诊断屏幕
Broadcom ネットワーク アダプタを持つ ESXi が紫色の診断画面で失敗する