Powering on a virtual machine fails with the error: A fault has occurred causing a virtual CPU to enter the shutdown state

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• Powering on a virtual machine fails.​
• vCenter shows the following error:

• Click OK to restart the virtual machine or Cancel to power off the virtual machine.
  A fault has occurred causing a virtual CPU to enter the shutdown state. If this fault had occurred outside of a virtual machine, it would have caused the physical machine to restart.
  The shutdown state can be reached by incorrectly configuring the virtual machine, a bug in the guest operating system, or a problem in VMware ESX.
  

• In the VM's vmware.log located /vmfs/volumes/<datastore>/<vmFolder>/vmware.log:

• YYYY-MM-DDT##:##:##.### vcpu-0 - A fault has occurred causing a virtual CPU to enter the shutdown state. If this fault had occurred outside of a virtual machine, it would have caused the physical machine to restart. The shutdown state can be reached by incorrectly configuring the virtual machine, a bug in the guest operating system, or a problem in VMware ESX.

Environment

• VMware ESXi
• VMware vCenter Server

Cause

This issue occurs if the virtual machine's CPU executed a code that led to a triple fault. When this fault occurs, the virtual machine is automatically powered off.

For more information on the triple fault, see CPU Triple Fault Wiki

Resolution

If this issue occurs while installing or booting a virtual machine using an ISO image from a CD-ROM or a file, ensure that the ISO image is not corrupted.

If this issue occurs while booting a virtual machine from a virtual disk, ensure that the virtual machine is booted from the correct virtual disk and that the data on the virtual disk is not corrupted. For more information, see Performing a disk check.

 

If the issue persists:

1. Collect the VMware Support information.
2. If possible, collect the virtual machine's suspend state ( .vmss) file.
   
   To collect the suspend state ( .vmss) file:
   1. Enable the Record Debugging Information feature for the virtual machine.
   2. Set the monitor.suspend_on_triplefault parameter in the virtual machine's configuration file ( .vmx) to TRUE. For more information, see Tips for editing a .vmx file.
      
      To modify the monitor.suspend_on_triplefault parameter using the vSphere Client:
       
      1. Power off the virtual machine.
      2. Right-click the virtual machine and click Edit Settings.
      3. Click the Options tab.
      4. In the Advanced options section, click General.
      5. Click Configuration Parameters.
      6. Click Add Row.
      7. Add monitor.suspend_on_triplefault in the Name column.
      8. Enter the value true in the Value column.
          
   3. Power on the virtual machine. When the triple fault occurs, a suspend state file of the virtual machine ( .vmss) is created in the virtual machine directory on the ESXi host.
       
3. File a support request with VMware Support - Creating and managing Broadcom support cases