I have heard of mysterious Problems with VM Ware before, but have never had any, untill last week. It just happened. A few of the VMs did not show up anymore.
I tried getting onto the Server with no luck. Not even over the open ssh Port.
First though … „hardware is dead“ … a remote console showed that this was not the case, but that I have a strange error running all over the screen, some mismatch in an address.
Ok.
I rebootet and there I was. CBT loaded successfully an now go home an die. I have googled this thing to death. I have read enough about how people waitet with this error hours and days. Sorry not me.
To cut a long story short. I am not 100% sure what it is, but my solution was the following.
The system being VM Ware ESXi 4.1,
1. I got an USB Stick, inserted it into the machine.
2. Got an ESXi 5.0 Installer on CD.
3. Got that installed onto the USB Stick and everything was fine.
I now just needed to get all the VMs back into the list and turn them on.
In reading more about it it seems to me that it was actually caused by one or more of my VMs which have had numerous Snapshots laying aroundfor ever. And from what I havebeen reading I guess you could call me lucky for having them run this long without errors. So yes, I removed all prior Snapshot from all VMs. What was I keeping them for anyway?
If there really is one you want to use for cloning or whatever, there are several easier ways whcih are a lot safer. Not to mention, performance increased noticable after removing all thos Snapshots.