Cisco host experience PSOD event "PF Exception 14" with Module nfnic 5.0.0.4x involved in panic

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Cisco brand host experiences PSOD event similar to this:

PF Exception 14 in world 2101033:vmm10:pr72xg IP 0x42000e5efa2f addr 0x0

 

Environment

• VMware ESXi 8.x
• VMware ESXi 9.x

Cause

There is a known issue with Cisco nfnic drivers prior to version 5.0.0.50 where the driver enters a condition in which the device_reset io_req is never removed from the pending list, even if the io_req is free. This causes a race condition that will crash ESXi.

Resolution

Update the Cisco nfnic driver to version 5.0.0.50 or later.