Dropped frame(s) are detected in vSphere

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• Dropped frame(s) are detected in the environment.
• Latency may be seen to storage.
• VMs may be randomly impacted.
• It may be seen in the var/logs/vmkernel.log the following:

cpu35:2115960)WARNING: iodm: vmk_IodmEvent:194: vmhba1: FRAME DROP event has been observed 400 times in the last one minute. This suggests a problem with Fibre Channel link/switch!.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi (All versions).

Cause

As the message in vmkernel log states, this indicates some problem on the physical fibre channel link or on the switch connected to this host.

FRAME DROP events suggests a possible connectivity issue or congestion.

Resolution

As this is outside ESXi scope, engage with the fabric/hardware/storage vendor to investigate and mitigate the dropped frames in the environment.

Additional Information

Error: Virtual machine unresponsive during snapshot consolidation

How to verify the CRC errors on VMHBA / Fibre Channel adapters on ESXi hosts

High latency observed to FC channel datastores due to dropped frames