Rare memory preallocation issue might cause an ESXi host to fail with a purple diagnostic screen

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

Issue/Introduction

For some types of VMs, such as PCIe passthrough VMs,

• ESXi tries to preallocate memory while the VM powers on.
• If the VM is terminated by vSphere High Availability in the same time during the memory pre-allocation.

  The ESXi host might fail with a purple diagnostic screen.

--vmkernel.log
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ Wa(180) vmkwarning: cpu54:########)WARNING: World: vm ######: ####: vmm0:VM_NAME:vcpu-0:This virtual machine has tried to execute an invalid part of memory. It is possible that the virtual disk or CD media you are using is not bootable.

--PSoD Backtrace--
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ cpu35:########)Backtrace for current CPU #35, worldID=########, fp=0x1
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ cpu35:########)0x45399651be90:[0x420023231c59]VmMemPf_PreallocRange@vmkernel#nover+0x45 stack: 0x1, 0xffff814e98bfc000, 0x4325db80eae0, 0xffffffff00000000, 0x45399911f000
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ cpu35:########)0x45399651bf60:[0x4200231b8cdf]AllocPreallocOneDomain@vmkernel#nover+0x44 stack: 0x45399e01be1c, 0x20, 0x4000, 0x45399911f000, 0x4325db93d730
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ cpu35:########)0x45399651bfb0:[0x4200231b8b9e]Alloc_DomainFnOneCPU@vmkernel#nover+0x57 stack: 0x45399651f100, 0x0, 0x0, 0x4200236d67b3, 0x0
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ cpu35:########)0x45399651bfe0:[0x4200236d67b2]CpuSched_StartWorld@vmkernel#nover+0xbf stack: 0x0, 0x420023144cf0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ cpu35:########)0x45399651c000:[0x420023144cef]Debug_IsInitialized@vmkernel#nover+0xc stack: 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ cpu35:########) VMware ESXi 8.0.x [Releasebuild-######## x86_64]
#PF Exception 14 in world ########:prealloc-1 IP 0x420023231c59 addr 0x10

Environment

VMware ESXi 8.0

Resolution

This issue is resolved in the VMware ESXi 8.0 Update 3h (Build 25067014)

Additional Information

VMware ESXi 8.0 Update 3h Release Notes
https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vsphere/vsphere/8-0/release-notes/esxi-update-and-patch-release-notes/vsphere-esxi-80u3h-release-notes.html