ESXi hosts go to a not responding state periodically in vCenter Server

Products

• VMware vSAN
• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0
• VMware vSphere ESX 8.x
• VMware vSphere ESX 7.x

Issue/Introduction

• ESXi hosts goes to not responding state periodically in vCenter Server
  
  
• Host Logs contains the following error
  vpxa.log:
  2025-##-##T##:##:##.###Z Wa(164) Vpxa[2125970]: [Originator@6876 sub=Heartbeat opID=vpxaHeartbeat.cpp:xxx-xxxxx] Failed to bind heartbeat socket; '#.#.#.host_IP', e: 99(Cannot assign requested address)
  2025-##-##T##:##:##.###Z Wa(164) Vpxa[2125970]: [Originator@6876 sub=Heartbeat opID=vpxaHeartbeat.cpp:xxx-xxxxx] Failed to bind heartbeat socket; '#.#.#.host_IP', e: 99(Cannot assign requested address)
  
  
•  vCenter Logs contains the following error
  vpxd.log:
  2025-##-##T##:##:##.###Z info vpxd[48005] [Originator@6876 sub=HostCnx opID=CheckforMissingHeartbeats-xxxxxx] [VpxdHostCnx] No heartbeats received from host; cnx: xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-############, h: host-xxxx, time since last heartbeat: 665188ms

Environment

vSphere 7.x, 8.x

Cause

• Duplicate and stale DNS Record of vcenter and host 
• vCenter unable to receive heartbeat update from Host intermittently
• vCenter database has has incorrect IP of host
  
  

Steps to check VCDB information for host:

Take a SSH to the vCenter server.

Connect to the VCDB (vCenter server database) using below command. 

/opt/vmware/vpostgres/current/bin/psql -d VCDB -U postgres

 

VCDB=# select id, dns_name, ip_address from vpx_host;

  id  |        dns_name         |   ip_address
------+-------------------------+----------------
 xxxx| host_name1 | #.#.#.1
 xxxx| host_name2 | #.#.#.2
 xxxx| host_name3 | #.#.#.5  ----> incorrect entry in vcenter database for host "host_name3" it should be #.#.#.3
(3 rows)

++correct IP of "host_name3" is #.#.#.3

Resolution

To Resolve this update and correct the DNS record from DNS Server