Unable to Power On VMs or Migrate VMs. Error Message "Transport (VMDB) error -45: Failed to connect to peer process"

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Powering on or migrating a virtual machine fails with error:

Transport (VMDB) error -45: Failed to connect to peer process.

• You see messages similar to the following in /var/log/.vmsyslogd.err

CRITICAL] vmsyslogd daemon starting

ERROR   ] Files are missing from the audit record storage directory

• There are no other log files in /var/log  (e.g vmkernel.log, hostd.log,...)
• Auditrecords is enabled and configured in /scratch/log

esxcli system auditrecords get
AuditRecordStatus:
Audit Record Remote Transmission Active: false
Audit Record Storage Active: true
Audit Record Storage Capacity: 100
Audit Record Storage Directory: /scratch/auditLog

• Prior to the issue, scratch location had been modified

Environment

vSphere ESXi 7.x

Cause

This issue occurs because the auditLog directory cannot be changed while auditrecords are enabled.

 

Resolution

 

•  Disable Audit records:

# esxcli system auditrecords local disable

•  Reboot the ESXi host
•  Enable Audit records:

# esxcli system auditrecords local enable

• check that the auditLog exists:

# ls /scratch/auditLog

 

Additional Information

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.esxi.install.doc/GUID-8981F5FA-BB2A-47FB-A59A-7FC5C523CFDE.html

Creates an audit record storage directory and unless specified, sets /scratch/auditLog as the default location. You must not manually create an audit record storage directory and you cannot change the audit record storage directory while audit record storage is enabled (see Syslog.global.uditRecord.storageEnable).