Calling a VDDK API fails with the error: POLL Failed to read from the signal socket 1496, return -1, error 10054 / An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Making calls to the VMware Disk Development Kit (VDDK) API such as VixDiskLib_Open, VixDiskLib_PrepareForAccess or VixDiskLib_EndAccess fail.
• When you make a call to the VDDK API, you see an error in the VDDK log similar to:
  
  POLL Failed to read from the signal socket 1496, return -1, error 10054/An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host
  
  
• The error appears repeatedly and a core dump is created.

Environment

Virtual Disk Development Kit 5.1
Virtual Disk Development Kit 5.5
VMware Virtual Disk Development 1.2

Cause

This issue occurs when the signal socket (1496 in this example) is created and used by PollDefault internally. On the host where the target virtual machine being backed up by VDDK resides, error 10054 indicates that an application closes the sockets that are used by PollDefault. The application could be security software, or an application that uses a plugin in to the Windows networking stack.

Resolution

This is a known issue affecting VMware Disk Development Kit 5.1 and 5.5. Currently, there is no resolution.

Note: The occurrence of this issue is rare and it is difficult to reproduce.

Additional Information

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