ESXi host is disconnected from vCenter due to vpxa crash

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Host is not responding though virtual machines are up and running.
   
• In the host logs, you may find similar errors:

2017-04-07T16:44:54.908Z info hostd[51580B70] [Originator@6876 sub=Snmpsvc] UpdateStats: report cimom converter stats completed
2017-04-07T16:45:01.364Z info hostd[51580B70] [Originator@6876 sub=Hostsvc.VmkVprobSource] VmkVprobSource::Post event: (vim.event.EventEx) {
--> key = 0,
--> chainId = 90705792,
--> createdTime = "1970-01-01T00:00:00Z",
--> userName = "",
--> datacenter = (vim.event.DatacenterEventArgument) null,
--> computeResource = (vim.event.ComputeResourceEventArgument) null,
--> host = (vim.event.HostEventArgument) {
--> name = "scentsy-esx03.sc-vmclus.local",
--> host = 'vim.HostSystem:ha-host'
--> },
--> vm = (vim.event.VmEventArgument) null,
--> ds = (vim.event.DatastoreEventArgument) null,
--> net = (vim.event.NetworkEventArgument) null,
--> dvs = (vim.event.DvsEventArgument) null,
--> fullFormattedMessage = <unset>,
--> changeTag = <unset>,
--> eventTypeId = "esx.problem.vpxa.core.dumped",
--> severity = <unset>,
--> message = <unset>,
--> arguments = (vmodl.KeyAnyValue) [
--> (vmodl.KeyAnyValue) {
--> key = "1",
--> value = "/usr/lib/vmware/vpxa/bin/vpxa"
--> },
--> (vmodl.KeyAnyValue) {
--> key = "2",
--> value = "2"
--> },
--> (vmodl.KeyAnyValue) {
--> key = "3",
--> value = "/var/core/vpxa-worker-zdump.000"
--> }
--> ],
--> objectId = "ha-eventmgr",
--> objectType = "vim.HostSystem",
--> objectName = <unset>,
--> fault = (vmodl.MethodFault) null
--> }
2017-04-07T16:45:01.365Z info hostd[51580B70] [Originator@6876 sub=Vimsvc.ha-eventmgr] Event 8869 : /usr/lib/vmware/vpxa/bin/vpxa crashed (2 time(s) so far) and a core file might have been created at /var/core/vpxa-worker-zdump.000. This might have caused connections to the host to be dropped.
Accepted password for user vpxuser from 127.0.0.1

Note: The preceding log excerpts are only examples. Date, time, and environmental variables may vary depending on your environment.

Cause

This issue occurs in ESXi 6.0 U2 due to vpxa out of memory.

Resolution

To resolve the issue, upgrade the ESXi host to 6.0 Patch 03 Build 4192238, available at VMware Downloads.