ESXi 6.0 Update 2 host fails with a PSOD error mentioning Vmxnet3VMKDevRxWithLock

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• The ESXi 6.0 Update 2 host fails with a purple diagnostic screen.
• You see the backtrace:
  
  0xhhhhhhhhhhhh:[0xhhhhhhhhhhhh]PanicvPanicInt@vmkernel#nover+0x37e
  0xhhhhhhhhhhhh:[0xhhhhhhhhhhhh]Panic_NoSaveNoReturn@vmkernel#nover+0x4d
  0xhhhhhhhhhhhh:[0xhhhhhhhhhhhh]Int6_UD2Assert@vmkernel#nover+0x12c
  0xhhhhhhhhhhhh:[0xhhhhhhhhhhhh]gate_entry_@vmkernel#nover+0x0
  0xhhhhhhhhhhhh:[0xhhhhhhhhhhhh]Vmxnet3VMKDevRxWithLock@vmkernel#nover+0x1f2f
  0xhhhhhhhhhhhh:[0xhhhhhhhhhhhh]Vmxnet3VMKDevRx@vmkernel#nover+0x2df
  0xhhhhhhhhhhhh:[0xhhhhhhhhhhhh]IOChain_Resume@vmkernel#nover+0x210
  0xhhhhhhhhhhhh:[0xhhhhhhhhhhhh]PortOutput@vmkernel#nover+0xae
  0xhhhhhhhhhhhh:[0xhhhhhhhhhhhh]EtherswitchForwardLeafPortsQuick@<None>#<None>+0x136
  0xhhhhhhhhhhhh:[0xhhhhhhhhhhhh]EtherswitchPortDispatch@<None>#<None>+0x5ec
  0xhhhhhhhhhhhh:[0xhhhhhhhhhhhh]Port_InputResume@vmkernel#nover+0x17b
  0xhhhhhhhhhhhh:[0xhhhhhhhhhhhh]Net_AcceptRxList@vmkernel#nover+0x115
  0xhhhhhhhhhhhh:[0xhhhhhhhhhhhh]NetPollWorldCallback@vmkernel#nover+0x12f
  0xhhhhhhhhhhhh:[0xhhhhhhhhhhhh]CpuSched_StartWorld@vmkernel#nover+0xa2
  
  
• The virtual machines have Large Receive Offload (LRO) for VMXNET3 NICs enabled.
• The virtual machine is running on hardware version 11.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0

Resolution

This is a known issue affecting ESXi 6.0 Update 2.

This issue is resolved in VMware ESXi 6.0, Patch Release ESXi600-201605001. 

 

To work around this issue, use one of these options:

• Disable hardware LRO for VMXNET3 on the ESXi host by changing the advanced configuration option /Net/Vmxnet3HwLRO to 0. For more information, see Configuring advanced options for ESXi/ESX (1038578).
  
  Notes:
  • Software LRO is enabled for VMXNET3 when hardware LRO is disabled.
  • This also can be set with this esxcli command:
    
    esxcli system settings advanced set -o /Net/Vmxnet3HwLRO -i 0
    
    For more information about accessing the Shell, see Using ESXi Shell in ESXi 5.x and 6.0 (2004746).

• Revert the ESXi host to a previously install version. For more information, see Reverting to a previous version of ESXi (1033604).

Additional Information

Reverting to a previous version of ESXi
Configuring advanced options for ESXi/ESX
Using ESXi Shell in ESXi 5.x and 6.x