Race condition on ESXi 6.5 causing disruption to VMs or hostd management service

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• ESXi 6.5 VM fails to start or consolidate with error: File system specific implementation of LookupAndOpen[file] failed.
• In the /var/run/log/vmkernel.log file, you see entries similar to:

             "CBT Disconnect Node failed for [...] with Busy".
        "Destroying cow device [...] failed: Busy".

Resolution

This issue is resolved in ESXi 6.5 U1 Express Patch 4 and ESXi 6.5 Patch Release ESXi650-201712001, available at VMware Patch Downloads. For more information on downloading patch, see How to download patches in Customer Connect (1021623).