ESXi hostd log repeatedly contains the following message: "An error occurred while loading configuration "/etc/vmware/config"

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

The hostd log on an ESXi host repeatedly contains the message:

[Originator@6876 sub=Default opID=a637a7d2] An error occurred while loading configuration "/etc/vmware/config",not all entries are being read. It is strongly encouraged that you manually inspect the file and fix any corruptions.

Environment

VMware VCF

VMware vSphere

Cause

This is caused by duplicate entries in the /etc/vmware/config file on the ESXi host. When the hostd service encounters duplicate entries it will load the first one then throw this error.

Resolution

1. Backup the config file before proceeding. (Ex. cp config oldconfig or similar)

2. Check the config file for any duplicate entries. One method would be to use the sort command with the count switch from the ESXi shell:

sort config |uniq --count

with this command any duplicate entries will begin with a value of 2 (or higher). In this example the vmx.log.KeepOld key is listed in the config file twice:

      1 libdir = "/usr/lib/vmware"
      2 vmx.log.KeepOld = "3"
      1 vmx.log.rotateSize = "1024000"

3. Edit the config file to remove any duplicate entries.

4. Verify the contents of the config file after the change.

5. Restart the hostd service on the ESXi host. For steps to restart hostd see the following KB: Restarting Management Agents in ESXi