ESXi host shows disconnected in the vCenter

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

The customer had a host go to a disconnected state from the vCenter. The host showed an all paths down event in the logs, resumed, and went disconnected, again, later

Environment

ESXi 8.0

vCenter 8.0

Cisco(R) Ethernet Converged NIC X710-DA4

Cause

Logs show issue with the i40en driver on the X710 adapter doing a HW reset

2025-04-08T14:04:00.976Z In(182) vmkernel: cpu21:2097522)Dump: 2917: Using dump buffer size 98304
2025-04-08T14:04:00.978Z In(182) vmkernel: cpu5:2097453)i40en: i40en_ResetHW:14979: 0000:17:00.1: HW Resetting
2025-04-08T14:04:00.978Z In(182) vmkernel: cpu5:2097453)i40en: i40en_PrepForReset:14122: 0000:17:00.1: Tearing down internal switch for reset
2025-04-08T14:04:00.978Z In(182) vmkernel: cpu5:2097453)Global reset polling failed to complete.
2025-04-08T14:04:00Z In(182) vmkernel:
2025-04-08T14:04:00.978Z Wa(180) vmkwarning: cpu5:2097453)WARNING: i40en: i40en_ResetAndRebuild:14397: 0000:17:00.1: PF Reset failed: -15
2025-04-08T14:04:00.978Z Wa(180) vmkwarning: cpu5:2097453)WARNING: i40en: i40en_ResetHW:14993: 0000:17:00.1: Failed to reset HW successfully, Status: Failure
2025-04-08T14:04:00.978Z Wa(180) vmkwarning: cpu5:2097453)WARNING: i40en: indrv_DeviceReset:2992: 0000:17:00.1: Failed to reset Hardware, bad0001
2025-04-08T14:04:00.978Z Wa(180) vmkwarning: cpu5:2097453)WARNING: i40en: indrv_UplinkReset:2855: 0000:17:00.1: Device reset process failed, bad0001

Driver list:

vmnic   PCI bus address  link  speed  duplex  MTU   driver  driver version  firmware version          MAC address        VID   DID   SVID  SDID  name
  -----   ---------------  ----  -----  ------  ---   ------  --------------  ----------------          -----------        ---   ---   ----  ----  -----------------------------------
  vmnic0  0000:17:00.0     Down  0      Half    1500  i40en   2.7.2.0         9.40 0x8000ed85 0.387.49  40:a6:b7:ce:f5:f8  8086  1572  1137  013b  Intel(R) Ethernet Controller X710 for 10GbE SFP+
  vmnic1  0000:17:00.1     Up    10000  Full    1500  i40en   2.7.2.0         9.40 0x8000ed85 0.387.49  40:a6:b7:ce:f5:f9  8086  1572  1137  0000  Intel(R) Ethernet Controller X710 for 10GbE SFP+
  vmnic2  0000:17:00.2     Down  0      Half    1500  i40en   2.7.2.0         9.40 0x8000ed85 0.387.49  40:a6:b7:ce:f5:fa  8086  1572  1137  0000  Intel(R) Ethernet Controller X710 for 10GbE SFP+
  vmnic3  0000:17:00.3     Up    10000  Full    9000  i40en   2.7.2.0         9.40 0x8000ed85 0.387.49  40:a6:b7:ce:f5:fb  8086  1572  1137  0000  Intel(R) Ethernet Controller X710 for 10GbE SFP+
  vmnic4  0000:3d:00.0     Down  0      Half    1500  i40en   2.7.2.0         9.40 0x8000ed85 0.387.49  40:a6:b7:ce:f6:b0  8086  1572  1137  013b  Intel(R) Ethernet Controller X710 for 10GbE SFP+
  vmnic5  0000:3d:00.1     Up    10000  Full    1500  i40en   2.7.2.0         9.40 0x8000ed85 0.387.49  40:a6:b7:ce:f6:b1  8086  1572  1137  0000  Intel(R) Ethernet Controller X710 for 10GbE SFP+
  vmnic6  0000:3d:00.2     Down  0      Half    1500  i40en   2.7.2.0         9.40 0x8000ed85 0.387.49  40:a6:b7:ce:f6:b2  8086  1572  1137  0000  Intel(R) Ethernet Controller X710 for 10GbE SFP+
  vmnic7  0000:3d:00.3     Up    10000  Full    9000  i40en   2.7.2.0         9.40 0x8000ed85 0.387.49  40:a6:b7:ce:f6:b3  8086  1572  1137  0000  Intel(R) Ethernet Controller X710 for 10GbE SFP+

Drivers and firmware are one revision behind

Resolution

Upgrade the driver and firmware according to the HCL Compatibility guide.