[Heads up] Do not update to vSphere 7 U3 when running thin-provisioned VMDKs


Userlevel 7
Badge +13

A bad bug was found in VMware vSphere 7 U3. A ESXi host may crashes with a PSOD when running thin-provisioned VMDKs. Currently there is not solution available. There are a few workarounds but no easy ones:

  • Downgrade to older version,
  • Convert all VMs (VMDKs) to Thick-provisioned,
  • Disable TRIM/UNMAP in Guest OS.


For more information see official VMware KB: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/86100

@jorge.delacruz  already posed about the issue: https://jorgedelacruz.uk/2021/10/22/vmware-psod-after-updating-to-vsphere-esxi-7-0-update-3-panic-requested-by-another-pcpu-thin-provisioned-vms/

Maybe good news: U3a is already announced: https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2021/10/vsphere-update-3a.html

 


12 comments

Userlevel 7
Badge +6

Thanks for the heads up here is as well. The vSphere 7.0 U3a it is just for vCenter, so this specific issue which affects ESXi it has not been addressed on any public build, might be hotfixes but I am not sure.

My advice will be, do not update to ESXi 7.0.3, vCenter is fine, just not the ESXi,l it seems it happens sometimes, when some big unmap blocks happen, etc. But still, better not to risk

Userlevel 7
Badge +12

Thanks Jorge and Wolfgang

Userlevel 7
Badge +20

There’s a second less discussed bug that is also doing the rounds, HA not working after installing u3a, vCenter is getting a 503 trying to log into the ESXi hosts and vpxa log on the hosts is showing messages about host changed and failed to diff ha-host:network.

 

So yeah, u3a is a bust 😩

Userlevel 7
Badge +13

VMware is still unlucky with their updates; it looks like every release in the last time contained some kind of certain bug. I'm missing the stability which ESXi used to have; instead we get new features with every minor release which used to be major versions in the past.

By the way, the KB already changed since Friday, as it contained much less information in that day.

 

Userlevel 7
Badge +20

Yeah saw this bug after doing vCenter but left my hosts at U2 cause of the USB NIC fling as they had not updated it for U3 yet. So stayed safe on this one as most my VMs are thin provisioned. 👍

Userlevel 7
Badge +11

Thx @vNote42 , it seems that Microsoft is not the only one putting customers and partners into problems with new updates :wink:

Userlevel 7
Badge +13

VMware is still unlucky with their updates; it looks like every release in the last time contained some kind of certain bug. I'm missing the stability which ESXi used to have; instead we get new features with every minor release which used to be major versions in the past.

By the way, the KB already changed since Friday, as it contained much less information in that day.

 

Being unlucky with their updates is a nice way of saying they have a huge quality problem these days! :grin:

Userlevel 7
Badge +13

VMware is still unlucky with their updates; it looks like every release in the last time contained some kind of certain bug. I'm missing the stability which ESXi used to have; instead we get new features with every minor release which used to be major versions in the past.

By the way, the KB already changed since Friday, as it contained much less information in that day.

 

Being unlucky with their updates is a nice way of saying they have a huge quality problem these days! :grin:

Let’s hope they don’t share the same QA department with Microsoft :see_no_evil::rofl:

Userlevel 7
Badge +8

All these issues with U3 paired with now dropping our most widely used boot method in our customer environments (µSD-RAID1) is really giving me some headache. Reminds me of those times where they were destroying CBT several times within a single year...

Userlevel 7
Badge +8

Another reason why I love Veeam. QA is so much better. I would even run a beta productively with Veeam…

Userlevel 7
Badge +13

All these issues with U3 paired with now dropping our most widely used boot method in our customer environments (µSD-RAID1) is really giving me some headache. Reminds me of those times where they were destroying CBT several times within a single year...

Yes! But since than, CBT was quite stable and trustworthy. I was hoping, after all these bugs U1 and U2, we higher quality in U3. :unamused:

Userlevel 7
Badge +13

VMware resolves the issue in U3a

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/rn/vsphere-esxi-70u3a-release-notes.html#whatsnew

 

 

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