VM console has a white spinning circle

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• Unable to access the VM Console from vSphere Client or from direct host client.
• Opening the VM Console shows a black screen with spinning white circle.
  
  

Cause

• This issue is caused if the "svga.preset" is set as "FALSE" in the VM Configuration.
• SVGA configuration can be verified by checking the VMX Configuration.
  
  [<username>@<hostname>:/vmfs/volumes/<datastore>/<VM Folder>] cat <VM Name>.vmx | grep -i "svga.present"
svga.present = "FALSE"
  
  

Resolution

Change the VMX configuration "svga.present" to "TRUE" by following below steps :

1. Shutdown the Virtual Machine
2. Enable SSH on the ESXi Host
3. Login to the host using SSH Client
4. Locate the VM location
5. Edit the 'vmx' file
   
   vi ######.vmx
   
   
6. Change svga.present to TRUE

svga.present = "TRUE"
   
   
7. Save the configuration
8. Reload the VMX - Reloading a vmx file without removing the virtual machine from inventory
9. Disable SSH on the ESXi
10. Power on the Virtual Machine
11. Retry opening the VM Console