[VMware] Could not start VMX: msg.vmk.status.VMK_NO_MEMORY
Last week I had some issues with starting virtual machines on vSphere 5.5 hosts (enough capacity available), when I try to start up the VM I receive message:
Could not start VMX: msg.vmk.status.VMK_NO_MEMORY”
An error was received from the ESX host while powering on VM [name]
Head globalCartel-1 already at its maximum size of 7869288. Cannot expand
Could not start VMX: msg.vmk.status.VMK_NO_MEMORY
Cause
This issue is caused by a memory leak in the driver which fills the SWAP memory of the ESXi host, making it unable to response to any requests at all. This issue occurs with ESXi hosts running on HP hardware with these versions of AMS:
- hp-ams 500.9.6.0-12.434156
- hp-ams-550.9.6.0-12.1198610
- hp-ams 500.10.0.0-18.434156
- hp-ams-550.10.0.0-18.1198610
Solution
This is a known issue affecting ESXi 5.x. To resolve this issue, upgrade to AMS version 10.0.1.
For ESXi 5.0 and 5.1, see:
For ESXi 5.5, see:
- HP Agentless Management Service Offline Bundle for VMware vSphere 5.5
- HP ESXi Offline Bundle for VMware vSphere 5.5
Note: In some cases, commands running on the ESXi host fails with cant’t fork. In this case the virtual machines running on the ESXi host needs to be powered off and the ESXi host rebooted. To verify the installed versions of AMS, run this command:
esxcli software vib list | grep ams
To remove the package on all hosts running on these AMS versions:
- Log in to the host using SSH. For more information, see Using ESXi Shell in ESXi 5.x and 6.0 (2004746).
- Run this command to stop the HP service (does not persist on reboot):
/etc/init.d/hp-ams.sh stop - Run this command to remove the VIB:
esxcli software vib remove -n hp-ams - Reboot the host.
- More information:
sanderdaems
Sander Daems is founder and author of this blog and working as a Lead (Sr.) Consultant by UNICA ICT Solutions. Sander has over 15 years experience in IT, primary focus: virtualization and modern worksplace.
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