ESXi 6.x/7.x host becomes unresponsive when using the vmw_ahci driver

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
When  using the vmw_ahci driver, you experience these symptoms:

• The ESXi host gets disconnected from the vCenter Server.
• The ALT+F12 of the console as well as the /var/log/vmkernel.log file of the affected ESXi host contains messages similar to:
  
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.806Z cpu84:2098096)vmw_ahci[000000115]:<4> ahciAbortIO:(curr) HWQD: 0 BusyL: 0
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.091Z cpu84:2098096)vmw_ahci[000000115]:<4> scsiTaskMgmtCommand:VMK Task: ABORT sn=0x172bc0 initiator=0x451af7c1b478
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.091Z cpu84:2098096)vmw_ahci[000000115]:<4> ahciAbortIO:(curr) HWQD: 0 BusyL: 0
  
  Note: The preceding log excerpts are only examples. Date, time, and environmental variables may vary depending on your environment.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5
VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.0

Cause

This issue occurs due to a race condition in the driver while processing I/O resulting in abort failures. This causes the host to become unresponsive in the vCenter server.

Resolution

This issue is resolved in
VMware ESXi 6.7 P05, Patch Release ESXi670-202103001 (Build 17700523), available at Broadcom support .
VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0 Update 2. available at Broadcom support

Workaround:
To workaround this issue, schedule a maintenance window to gracefully shutdown the VMs and reboot the affected ESXi host.

Additional Information

Impact/Risks:

VM's are not impacted but the ability to manage hosts and VMs are impacted.