ESXi host becomes disconnected, vm's not responding

Products

• VMware vSphere ESX 8.x
• VMware vSphere ESX 7.x

Issue/Introduction

• Hostd service has crashed, showing similar entries to the following in ESXi - /var/log/hostd-probe.log
  

  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS error hostd-probe[2102169] [Originator@6876 sub=Default] hostd detected to be non-responsive

• In ESXi - /var/log/syslog.log file, you can see lines similar to: 
  

  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS lwsmd: [LwKrb5GetTgtImpl ../lwadvapi/threaded/krbtgt.c:262] KRB5 Error code: -1765328360 (Message: Preauthentication failed)
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS lwsmd: [lsass] Failed to run provider specific request (request code = 14, provider = 'lsa-activedirectory-provider') -> error = 40022, symbol = LW_ERROR_PASSWORD_MISMATCH, client pid = 2300000

• In ESXi - /var/log/vmkernel.log file, you can see lines similar to:
  

  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS In(182) cpu5:2100717)Admission failure in path: host/vim/vmvisor/likewise:lwsmd.2100697:uw.2100697
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS cpu5:2100717)UserWorld 'lwsmd' with cmdline '/usr/lib/vmware/likewise/sbin/lwsmd --syslog'
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS cpu5:2100717)uw.2100697 (20688) extraMin/extraFromParent: 34/34, likewise (649) childEmin/eMinLimit: 23282/23296

Environment

• ESXi 7.0
• ESXi 8.0

Cause

Time on ESXi host is out of sync.

Resolution

Verify that the ESXi host's ntpd service is synchronized with the AD DC's time. If it is not synchronized, restart the ntpd service on the ESXi host. Refer to KB Configuring Network Time Protocol (NTP) on an ESXi host using the vSphere Client for additional details. 

It is recommended that the ESXi hosts and AD domain controllers point to the same NTP server.