Tech-Gen

We received lot of Purple Screen of death(PSOD) on ESXi host 5.5. When analyzed the logs and googled related to the error, It comes to know that it is a known issue with hpsa (HP ProLiant Smart Array Controller ) driver affecting ESXi 5.5. It is causing memory leak associated with device rescans resulting in out of memory conditions and a potential PSOD. HP has released the latest version of HPSA. HP has released the latest version of HPSA driver (5.5.0.60-1) for vSphere 5.5 . Below issues were addressed as part of this latest HPSA driver version Fixed a memory leak associated with device rescans resulting in out of memory conditions and a potential PSOD. Fixed a null pointer dereference in error handling code that can cause a PSOD in rare cases when device inquiries fail. Restore LUN numbering policy to start with 1 instead of 0, avoiding potential issues with Raw Device Maps. Enable 64bit DMA mapping instead of default 32bit mapping. Improve null pointer checks in d...

Collecting diagnostic information for VMware products (1008524)     Select your product and, where appropriate, the version from this list. Note : When selecting your product, see the product versions in the corresponding article to determine if the relevant version is listed. VMware ACE (2.x) Collecting diagnostic information for VMware ACE 2.x (1000588) VMware Capacity Planner Collecting diagnostic information for VMware Capacity Planner (1008424) VMware Consolidated Backup (1.5) Collecting diagnostic information for VMware Virtual Consolidated Backup 1.5 (1006784) VMware Converter Collecting diagnostic information for VMware Converter (1010633) VMware Data Protection Collecting diagnostic information for VMware Data Protection (2033910) VMware Data Recovery Collecting diagnostic information for VMware Data Recovery (1012282) VMware ESXi/ESX Collecting diagnostic information for VMware ESXi/ESX us...

Location of log files for VMware products (1021806) To determine the default log locations for VMware products, see the most relevant document. vSphere Suite vCenter Server (formerly VirtualCenter Server): Location of vCenter Server log files (1021804) Location of Inventory Service log files (2056632) Location of Profile-Drive Storage log files (2056646) Location of vCenter Single Sign-On log files for vCenter Server 5.1 and 5.5 (2033430) Collecting diagnostic information for the vSphere Client or VMware Infrastructure Client (1003687) Location of vSphere Web Client service logs (2004090) Update Manager Location of VMware vSphere Update Manager logs (2038036) ESX(i) Location of vSphere ESXi Dump Collector log files (2003277) Location of ESX 3.0-4.1 log files (1021800) Location of ESXi 3.5-4.1 log files (1021801) Location of ESXi 5.0 log files (2004201) Location of ESXi 5.1 and 5.5 log files (2032076) vSphere Data Recovery Location...

PowerPath VE 5.8 causes vSphere 5.5 Hosts a PSOD Yes, its the Powerpath version 5.8 caused the vSphere 5.5 Hosts a PSOD. As you can see the PSOD screen it is pointing to the Power Path issue. When investigated, going through the PSOD, VMKernel Logs its the Powerpath which was the culprit for the PSOD. Now, why the Powerpath thrown the PSOD? Its because the EMC PowerPath/VE release which was not compatible with the version of vSphere we have it installed that is vSphere 5.5. Here is the compatibility Matrix that I collected from the VMware KB: kb.vmware.com/kb/1019844 Why installed the version which is not compatible with the vSphere 5.5? Yep, that's the right question asked!! why was the Powerpath version installed when its not supported on vSphere 5.5. To answer this question, need to explain the environment. We had the hosts already running with the vSphere 5.1 and with the powerpath 5.8 installed, and as a upgrade project we had our hosts upgraded vSp...