Dead paths are not removed due to page 83 command response.

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• Datastore are inaccessible and hosts go to not responding state.
• Storage paths state is not updated and remain active.
• During DR test, we lose access to VMFS volumes.
• Multiple storage adapter rescans are required to clear inactive paths.
• We see below "page 83" messages in vmkernel logs :

WARNING: VMW_SATP_ALUA: satp_alua_getTargetPortInfo:160: Could not get page 83 INQUIRY data for path "vmhba64:C3:T0:L0" - Transient storage condition, suggest retry (195887294)
WARNING: VMW_SATP_ALUA: satp_alua_getTargetPortInfo:160: Could not get page 83 INQUIRY data for path "vmhba64:C3:T0:L1" - Transient storage condition, suggest retry (195887294)

Environment

ESX 7.0.x
ESX 8.0
ESX 8.0U1

Cause

While fetching target port information, the INQUIRY (page-83) command is sent to the target. In cases where the specified LUN is unmapped (resulting in a ghost LUN configuration), different targets are responding inconsistently.

Resolution

This issue is fixed in ESXi 7.0 U3v and above.

This issue is not found in 8.0 U2 and later version.