VxRail: Virtual machine creation may fail because agent is unable to retrieve VM creation options from the host

Summary: Virtual machine creation may fail because agent is unable to retrieve VM creation options from the host. This occurs when an administrator is unable to connect directly to the ESXi host or manage under vCenter server. ...

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Symptoms

vCenter Server displays the error:

Virtual machine creation may fail because agent is unable to retrieve VM creation options from the host.
Warning: If LACP is configured on the vSAN network, do not restart management agents on ESXi hosts running vSAN.
  • Restarting the management agents may impact any tasks that are running on the ESXi host at the time of the restart.
  • Check for any storage issues before restarting the Host daemon hostd service or services.sh.

Cause

The agents or services on the ESXi host may have halted.

Resolution

To resolve this issue use one of the following procedures:

1. Restart the Management agents on the ESXi host using Direct Console User Interface (DCUI);

  1. Connect to the console of your ESXi host.
  2. Press F2 to customize the system.
  3. Log in as root.
  4. Use the Up and Down arrows to go to Troubleshooting Options and then select Restart Management Agents.
  5. Press Enter.
  6. Press F11 to restart the services.
  7. When the service restarts, press Enter.
  8. Press Esc to log out.
Note: You can also restart services using the Host Client. In Host Client, select Host, then Manage, then Services, and then select the service to restart.


2. Restart Management agents in ESXi Using ESXi Shell or SSH:

  1. Log in to ESXi Shell or SSH as root. For Enabling ESXi Shell or SSH, see Using ESXi Shell in ESXi 6.x, 7.x and 8.x (2004746) This hyperlink is taking you to a website outside of Dell Technologies..
  2. Restart the ESXi host daemon and vCenter Agent services using these commands:
/etc/init.d/hostd restart
/etc/init.d/vpxa restart
Caution:
  • If LACP is enabled and configured, do not restart management services using the services.sh command. Instead, restart independent services using the /etc/init.d/module restart command.
  • If the issue is not resolved, and you are restarting all the services that are a part of the services.sh script, take a downtime before proceeding to the script.
  • If NSX is configured in the environment, do not run the /sbin/services.sh restart command because this restarts all services on the ESXi host.
  • If you must restart the management agents on the ESXi host, restart vpxa, host.d, and fdm individually.
  • If you must also run the /sbin/services.sh restart command because restarting each management agent does not work, then migrate all the VMs off the ESXi host and put the host in maintenance mode if possible.
  • If you are unsure that NSX for vSphere is installed on an ESXi host, run this command to verify:
    • esxcli software vib list --rebooting-image | grep esx-*
  • Look for the following VIBs to determine if NSX is installed on the ESXi host:
vsip-esx
esx-vxlan
  • If using shared graphics in a View environment (VGPU, vDGA, vSGA), do not use services.sh. This shuts down the xorg service which is responsible for graphics at the guest operating system level. By ripping the graphics out of the guest operating system, you cause the crash of your VDI workload using the shared graphics. Verify that you are using shared graphics to only restart hostd, and vpxa if you are not in maintenance mode.

See VMware KB article for additional information: Restarting the Management agents in ESXi (1003490) This hyperlink is taking you to a website outside of Dell Technologies..

Additional Information

Refer to this video:

You can also view this video on YouTube .

Affected Products

VxRail, VxRail Appliance Family

Products

VxRail Software
Article Properties
Article Number: 000057281
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 05 Feb 2025
Version:  12
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