Unable to access the ESXi host and goes into not responding state
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Unable to access the ESXi host and goes into not responding state

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Article ID: 399152

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Updated On:

Products

VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

  • Unable to access ESXi host via Host CLI or SSH. Rebooting the host may get stuck at below 'storage path claim' phase.

  • Unable to launch the virtual machine console. Blank screen reported while launching the VM console.

  • ESXi host goes into not-responding on vCenter UI.
  • Hostd peformance degraded and this is observed in DCUI console.

Environment

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

Cause

This issue is caused due to underlying storage connectivity issues leading to hostd performance getting degraded. 

Hostd was experiencing slowness and degraded due to underlying storage issues and due to which there is missed stats samples from hostd and this leads to communication issues between ESXi host and vCenter.

  • Path down and degraded messages observed in /var/run/vobd.log

2025-05-22T02:32:33.464Z In(14) vobd[2097956]:  [scsiCorrelator] 845418843830us: [esx.problem.storage.redundancy.degraded] Path redundancy to storage device naa.################### degraded. Path vmhba4:C0:T7:L20 is down. Affected datastores: Unknown.

  • Storage target port logouts observed in /var/run/vmkernel.log

2025-05-22T02:54:48.238Z In(182) vmkernel: cpu27:3529939)qlnativefc: vmhba3(58:0.1): qlnativefcLogioEntry:2379:Async-logout complete - ##:##:##:##:##:##:##:## hdl=116 portid=##### iop0=0.
2025-05-22T02:54:49.938Z In(182) vmkernel: cpu63:3529142)qlnativefc: vmhba3(58:0.1): qlnativefcAsyncEvent:967:Port logout 0009 0007 0b00.

  • Heartbeat timeouts observed and can be checked under /var/run/vobd.log

2025-05-21T19:56:32.704Z In(14) vobd[2097957]:  [vmfsCorrelator] 2991382648600us: [vob.vmfs.heartbeat.timedout] ########-#########-####-########### Datastore#

  • VPXA logs under /var/run/log/vpxa.log complains on "Skipping stat update due to stale sample from hostd" .

2025-05-21T19:55:37.438Z In(166) Vpxa[10013357]: [Originator@6876 sub=hostdstats] Skipping stat update due to stale sample from hostd

Resolution

Engage the storage and switch team to further investigate this issue.

Additional Information

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