PSOD in ESXi 7.0 Update 2a with Panic Message: BlueScreen: PANIC bora/vmkernel/main/dlmalloc.c:4933 - Usage error in dlmalloc

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

ESXi host 7.0 Update 2a crashed with Purple Scree of Death with the following Message.

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Panic Message: @BlueScreen: PANIC bora/vmkernel/main/dlmalloc.c:4933 - Usage error in dlmalloc
Backtrace (top 8 lines):
  0x45395a59b830:[0x4200246fa5b0]PanicvPanicInt@vmkernel#nover+0x2cc stack: 0x4200246fa5b0, 0x4314ddeeb900, 0x45395a59b830, 0x4200246faa9d, 0x4200246faa9d
  0x45395a59b8e0:[0x4200246faa9c]Panic_NoSave@vmkernel#nover+0x4d stack: 0x45395a59b940, 0x45395a59b900, 0x43088f97ef80, 0x420024c26aa2, 0x1345
  0x45395a59b940:[0x420024741510]DLM_free@vmkernel#nover+0x22d stack: 0x4314ddeeb9d0, 0x42002473e866, 0xdfc, 0x42002471ef7d, 0x45d9814ee800
  0x45395a59b960:[0x42002473e865]Heap_Free@vmkernel#nover+0xba stack: 0x45d9814ee800, 0x45d9805d7d00, 0x45d9814e6858, 0x500400, 0x4314ddeeb9d0
  0x45395a59b9b0:[0x42002463c6f1]FS_IOAccessDone@vmkernel#nover+0x132 stack: 0x45d9814e6840, 0x1, 0x1, 0x0, 0x45d9a5005bc0
  0x45395a59b9f0:[0x4200246bc450]AsyncPopCallbackFrameInt@vmkernel#nover+0x55 stack: 0x45d9805d7d00, 0x43088f974f40, 0x45d9a5005d40, 0x4200246500f7, 0x45d9a5005dc8
  0x45395a59ba20:[0x4200246500f6]FDSAsyncTokenIODone@vmkernel#nover+0x87 stack: 0x45d9a5005bc0, 0x45d9a5005d40, 0x43088f974f40, 0x4200249f2282, 0x43088f975800
  0x45395a59ba50:[0x4200249f2281]SCSIDeviceCmdCompleteInt@vmkernel#nover+0x76 stack: 0x45d9a5005bc0, 0x6f, 0x45d9a5005d40, 0x0, 0x45d9a5005bc0
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Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.2

Cause

The issue is related to memory heap corruption, which is detected during a memory deallocation (free) operation. The affected memory heap is the VMFS heap.

Resolution

The issue is fixed in ESXi 7.0 Update 3c and later versions.