"Failed to get controller list" when 'get controllers' is executed and NSX Transport node status is in 'unknown' state.

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"Failed to get controller list" when 'get controllers' is executed and NSX Transport node status is in 'unknown' state.

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Article ID: 407365

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Updated On:

Products

VMware NSX

Issue/Introduction

NSX Transport node status is in Unknown state

Ping test from affected ESXi host to all NSX managers completes
From the NSX UI, under Fabric --> Hosts --> (affected host), click on "view details" which shows Controller connectivity "Unknown"
Command 'nsxcli -c get controllers' on affected ESXi host shows the error: "Failed to get controller list"

From logs we can see that there is a timeout connecting to nestdb:

WARNING: NestdbClient: failed to get stub to tcp://127.0.0.1:2480, retrying in 5000ms in var/run/log/nsx-syslog.log in the ESXi host:

2025-10-14T22:26:13.589Z Wa(180) nsx-opsagent[2945781]: NSX 2945781 - [nsx@6876 comp="nsx-esx" subcomp="opsagent" s2comp="nestdb-client" tid="2946826" level="WARNING"] NestDbClient: failed to get stub to tcp://127.0.0.1:2480, retrying in 5000 ms...

WARN: DaemonHealthMonitor: NestDB echo timeout (60sec)

WARN: DaemonHealthMonitor: ping nestdb failed

Checking the status of nsx-nestdb service on the affected ESXi host shows the service is not in a running state:

[root@esxi-host:~] /etc/init.d/nsx-nestdb status
NSX-NESTDB is not running

Environment

VMware NSX

Cause

The nsx-nestdb service is not in a running state causing the controller connectivity to be in a down state. The status of the transport node reports controller connectivity to be "Unknown" in the NSX UI.
The ESXi transport node fails to get the controller list as the nsx-nestdb service is not available.