Reconfiguring the VM network adapter running on DV Switch fails with error : Failed to connect virtual device Ethernet0

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0

Issue/Introduction

When trying to manually connect the virtual network adapter with VM Powered on, powered off state and post powering on or post a VM reboot, you see this error: 

Failed to connect virtual device Ethernet0

The vmware.log of the virtual machine, found in /vmfs/volumes/<datastore>/<vm-name> has the following entries: 

msg.device.badconnect failed to connect virtual device ethernet 0
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.xxxZ| vmx| I125: VMXNET3 user: failed to connect 'Ethernet0' to DV Port '92'.
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.xxxZ| vmx| I125: VigorTransport_ServerSendResponse opID=m2nhpft9-xxxxxxx-auto-xxxxx-h5:xxxxxxxx-29-01-7a-da5d seq=1701: Completed Ethernet request with messages.
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.xxxZ| vmx| I125: Msg_Post: Error
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.xxxZ| vmx| I125: [msg.device.badconnect] Failed to connect virtual device 'Ethernet0'.
msg.device.badconnect failed to connect virtual device ethernet 0
virtual nic with hardware address failed to connect to distributed virtual port on switch there are no more ports available on the host proxy switch.

/var/run/log/hostd.log contains the following messages :  

YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.xxxZ| vmx| I125: VMXNET3 user: failed to connect 'Ethernet0' to DV Port '92'.
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.xxxZ| vmx| I125: VigorTransport_ServerSendResponse opID=m2nhpft9-4226623-auto-2ila8-h5:70297819-29-01-7a-da5d seq=1701: Completed Ethernet request with messages.
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.xxxZ| vmx| I125: Msg_Post: Error
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.xxxZ| vmx| I125: [msg.device.badconnect] Failed to connect virtual device 'Ethernet0'.
msg.device.badconnect failed to connect virtual device ethernet 0
virtual nic with hardware address failed to connect to distributed virtual port on switch there are no more ports available on the host proxy switch

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.x

Cause

This issue occurs due to a memory leak for pktlist in portset world data.  When there are no packets attached to pktlist in portset world data, there is a risk to leak the pktlist memory.
If the portset world data is not released in the fastslab, then it will be no memory leak as the packet list can be reused. But if the fastslab release this slab to buffer, then the packet list will be leaked.

Resolution

This issue has been resolved in VMware ESXi 7.0 Update 2c.

In case an update to ESXi 7.0 U2c or a newer version is currently not possible, reboot the the host to temporarily work around the issue.