Hostd crashes "Memory exceeds hard limit" on ESXi 5.5

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Hostd crashes with the error:

Memory exceeds hard limit

• In the hostd-worker-zdump file, there are errors similar to:

Unsigned chunks have 15753638 instances taking 0x196e0ed8(426643160) bytes.

Signature 675a1e4 (VmkCtl::Adv::AdvancedUserOptionBranchImpl) has 5371025 instances taking 0xd02d848(218290248) bytes.

Signature 6759a24 (VmkCtl::Adv::AdvancedOptionBranchImpl) has 225 instances taking 0x2330(9008) bytes.

Signature 6752abc (VmkCtl::Network::VirtualSwitchInfoImpl) has 14 instances taking 0xe0(224) bytes.

Signature b4f0030 has 9 instances taking 0x290(656) bytes.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5

Cause

This issue occurs due to numerous instances of the AdvancedUserOptionBranchImpl object causing memory to exceed the hard limit.

Resolution

This issue is resolved in ESXi 5.5, Patch Release ESXi550-201709001. For more information, see VMware ESXi 5.5, Patch Release ESXi550-201709001 (2150882)

 

 

 

Additional Information

VMware ESXi 5.5, Patch Release ESXi550-201709001