Network connection lost with physical network adapter ConnectX-4 Lx EN NIC

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• The virtual machine cannot ping other virtual machines on the same subnet in different ESXi hosts. 
• No ARP packet received on the physical network card of the target virtual machine with below command: 
  
# pktcap-uw --uplink vmnicx --ethtype 0x0806 --dir 2 -o - |tcpdump-uw -enr - | grep <source-vm-ip-address>

  For more information about how to capture network packets in ESXi, refer to Packet capture on ESXi using the pktcap-uw tool

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Cause

The driver and firmware of the network adapter are incompatible.

Resolution

To resolve the issue, update the driver version to match the compatibility requirement:

1. Go to Broadcom Compatibility Guide
2. Under 'Platform & Compute' click 'IO Devices'
3. Input the network adapter VID DID SVID SSID
4. Click 'View Results'
5. Select 'ESXi Versions'
6. Download proper driver according to the firmware version
7. Install the driver in ESXi host with the KB Download and install async drivers in VMware ESXi

To workaround the issue, use one of options:

     Option 1: select a portgroup backed with a different kind of physical network adapter.
     Option 2: migrate the virtual machine to another ESXi host.