ESXi PSOD (purple screen of death) #PF Exception 14 in world tq tcpip4 tcp_timer_keep

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

ESXi 8.0.X may encounter a Purple Screen of Death (PSOD) during tcpip world operations.

2026-07-30T02:59:09.788Z cpu82:2098771)@BlueScreen: #PF Exception 14 in world 2098771:tq:tcpip4 IP 0x42000d385655 addr 0x134
PTEs:0xa12f5cd023;0xa12f5ce023;0xa12f5cf023;0x0;
2026-07-30T02:59:09.788Z cpu82:2098771)Code start: 0x42000d200000 VMK uptime: 6:08:24:33.803
2026-07-30T02:59:09.788Z cpu82:2098771)0x453a2da9bea8:[0x42000d385655]SPTryLockWork@vmkernel#nover+0x15 stack: 0x42000e8b36a8
2026-07-30T02:59:09.788Z cpu82:2098771)0x453a2da9beb0:[0x42000e841bd8]rw_try_wlock@(tcpip4)#<None>+0x39 stack: 0x453a2da9bec0
2026-07-30T02:59:09.788Z cpu82:2098771)0x453a2da9bec0:[0x42000e8b36a7]tcp_timer_keep@(tcpip4)#<None>+0x128 stack: 0xffff
2026-07-30T02:59:09.789Z cpu82:2098771)0x453a2da9bf10:[0x42000e83a862]callout_timer@(tcpip4)#<None>+0x1a7 stack: 0x431c7f3ad058
2026-07-30T02:59:09.789Z cpu82:2098771)0x453a2da9bf60:[0x42000d23aa2e]VmkTimerQueueWorldFunc@vmkernel#nover+0x38f stack: 0xffffffffffffffff

The vmkernel dump may also show the following:

2026-07-30T02:59:09.785Z cpu82:2098771)ESC[45mESC[33;1mVMware ESXi 8.0.3 [Releasebuild-25429389 x86_64]ESC[0m
#PF Exception 14 in world 2098771:tq:tcpip4 IP 0x42000d385655 addr 0x134
PTEs:0xa12f5cd023;0xa12f5ce023;0xa12f5cf023;0x0;

Module(s) involved in panic: [tcpip4 Built on: May 14 2026]
2026-07-30T02:59:09.786Z cpu82:2098771)cr0=0x8001003d cr2=0x134 cr3=0x63c000 cr4=0x14616c

Environment

ESXi 8.0 U3 up to and including U3j build 25429389 

Cause

A rare race condition between the TCP control path and keep alive timer during a disconnect operation might cause ESXi Host crash with PSOD (purple screen of death).

Resolution

The issue will be resolved in a future release.