Symantec Messaging Gateway Unable to Process Messages Due to Kernel-Level Task Aborts

Products

• Messaging Gateway Hardware

Issue/Introduction

An incident was identified where Symantec Messaging Gateway failed to process incoming messages. Initial troubleshooting revealed no apparent configuration or application-level errors. However, upon reviewing the system logs, several recurring entries were observed in the kernel log:

(info) kernel: [-] mptscsih: ioc0: attempting task abort!
(info) kernel: [-] mptscsih: ioc0: task abort: SUCCESS

Environment

Messaging Gateway running on virtual infrastructure 

Cause

The kernel logs suggest that the host system is experiencing I/O-level disruptions that prevent stable operation of the disk subsystem. In virtualized deployments, this often points to problems within the underlying virtualization platform—such as storage latency, resource contention, or hardware issues impacting the virtual disk controller.

Resolution

This issue is not directly related to Symantec Messaging Gateway software itself but rather the virtual machine (VM) environment in which it is hosted. As such, the following steps are recommended:

1. Engage VM Administrators: Notify the team responsible for managing the virtualization platform and provide the relevant log entries.

2. Verify VM Health: Request a thorough check of the VM layer, including:

   • Storage performance and latency

   • Disk I/O queue depth

   • Host resource utilization (CPU, memory, disk)

   • Hypervisor and hardware health logs

3. Monitor for Recurrence: After any remediation on the VM layer, continue to monitor the SMG logs to ensure that task aborts do not reoccur.