Unexpected VM crash with signal: 11 on svga

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
VMX can crash while running heavy 3D graphics inside the vm.

• In the vmkernel.log file, you see entries similar to:
  
  2017-09-14T02:51:14.205Z cpu66:44811)WARNING: UserMem: 6252: Resize failed: Out of memory: old end 0x35f1d000 new end 0x37250000
  2017-09-14T02:51:14.316Z cpu48:44811)UserDump: 1908: Dumping cartel 43772 (from world 44811) to file /vmfs/volumes/57aa83c2-88eea37b-####-########100/VI4037/vmx-zdump.000 ...
   
• In the vmware.log file, you see entries similar to:
  
  2017-09-14T02:06:37Z[+2699.219]| svga| I125: Msg_Post: Error
  2017-09-14T02:06:37Z[+2699.219]| svga| I125: [msg.log.error.unrecoverable] VMware ESX unrecoverable error: (svga)
  2017-09-14T02:06:37Z[+2699.219]| svga| I125+ Unexpected signal: 11.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0

Cause

This issue occurs when VMX runs out of memory due to heavy graphics workload.

Resolution

This issue is resolved in VMware ESX 6.0 P07 (build 9239799).

Workaround:
To work around this issue, follow these steps:

1. Disable 3D graphics. 
   Set “mks.enable3d=FALSE” in vm's configuration file (.vmx file) to disable 3D graphics.
    
2. Power cycle the vm (power off and power on) for the configuration change to take effect.