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

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.