Error message: "NMI watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#X stuck for XXs!" on console

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• When creating a snapshot of the vCenter Appliance and/or deploying a VCHA
• CPU related errors on the VCSA console
• Errors similar to:

[2989.634241] NMI watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#0 stuck for 42s! [jsvc:8372]
[2989.634244] NMI watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#1 stuck for 44s! [jsvc:6612]
[18817.970155] NMI watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#1 stuck for 29s! [vmware-cis-lice:29462]

Environment

VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.5.x
VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.7.x
VMware vCenter Server Appliance 7.0.x
VMware vCenter Server Appliance 8.0.x

Cause

This is kernel messages informing that vCPU did not get execution for N seconds.

Resolution

This message can be safely ignored and shouldn't lead to issues on the vCenter Appliance if timeout is within acceptable timeout range.

Workaround:
The most common cause for this could be due to the system is stunned or suffering very high latency. Check the following to verify:

• Storage performance
• Snapshot commit performance
• CPU values for both ESXi and a vCenter Virtual Machine.