New VM keeps turning off

DustinB3403

@G-I-Jones What hypervisor are you using?

G I Jones

@DustinB3403 said in New VM keeps turning off:

@G-I-Jones What hypervisor are you using?

Dell OEM ESXi 6.7 Update 2

DustinB3403

Did you install the ESXi Guest drivers (the guest should auto-detect and install them) but it may not have. Click on your VM's disk drive and mount the guest additions iso.

You can check the hardware manager as well to see if there are ESXi or Citrix devices listed in there.

G I Jones

@DustinB3403 said in New VM keeps turning off:

Did you install the ESXi Guest drivers (the guest should auto-detect and install them) but it may not have. Click on your VM's disk drive and mount the guest additions iso.

You can check the hardware manager as well to see if there are ESXi or Citrix devices listed in there.

Are we talking about VMWare Tools again? If so, check that box.

DustinB3403

@G-I-Jones said in New VM keeps turning off:

VMWare Tools

Yes.

If the guest has the drivers installed, it may be worth enabling verbose logging so you get some more details from the system.

G I Jones

@DustinB3403 said in New VM keeps turning off:

@G-I-Jones said in New VM keeps turning off:

VMWare Tools

Yes.

If the guest has the drivers installed, it may be worth enabling verbose logging so you get some more details from the system.

Thanks, I'll do that now.

DustinB3403

You could try NirSoft BlueScreenView as well, not sure if it'll be able to produce much of anything besides what you've already seen in the logs of "the previous shutdown was unexpected"

black3dynamite

UEFI or BIOS VM?
If UEFI, is secure boot enabled?

G I Jones

@black3dynamite said in New VM keeps turning off:

UEFI or BIOS VM?
If UEFI, is secure boot enabled?

UEFI, Secure Boot is Disabled

EddieJennings

You've likely checked for this, but are there events in the Application logs that talk about a bugcheck around the time of the shutdown, or does a C:\Windows\Memory.dmp file exist that was created around that time?

pmoncho

@G-I-Jones said in New VM keeps turning off:

@black3dynamite said in New VM keeps turning off:

UEFI or BIOS VM?
If UEFI, is secure boot enabled?

UEFI, Secure Boot is Disabled

You may want to go into (on the guest) System Properties -> Advanced Tab -> Startup and Recovery -> Uncheck "Automatically Restart"

That way if you get BSOD, you can see it on the screen.

Then look for the memory dump like @EddieJennings stated. Then use program @DustinB3403 mentioned to figure out WTH is going on.

If you don't know if it is the whole host, whip up a linux machine real quick and let it run. If the Exchange server halts, see if you can still access the linux machine. Just an option.

G I Jones

@EddieJennings said in New VM keeps turning off:

You've likely checked for this, but are there events in the Application logs that talk about a bugcheck around the time of the shutdown, or does a C:\Windows\Memory.dmp file exist that was created around that time?

There were no events about a bugcheck around the time of the shutdown. Something I do find curious though, is the fact there isn't a %SYSTEMROOT%\MEMORY.DMP file at all.

DustinB3403

@G-I-Jones said in New VM keeps turning off:

@EddieJennings said in New VM keeps turning off:

You've likely checked for this, but are there events in the Application logs that talk about a bugcheck around the time of the shutdown, or does a C:\Windows\Memory.dmp file exist that was created around that time?

There were no events about a bugcheck around the time of the shutdown. Something I do find curious though, is the fact there isn't a %SYSTEMROOT%\MEMORY.DMP file at all.

There usually isn't if verbose logging isn't enabled with these types of crashes.

G I Jones

@pmoncho said in New VM keeps turning off:

@G-I-Jones said in New VM keeps turning off:

@black3dynamite said in New VM keeps turning off:

UEFI or BIOS VM?
If UEFI, is secure boot enabled?

UEFI, Secure Boot is Disabled

You may want to go into (on the guest) System Properties -> Advanced Tab -> Startup and Recovery -> Uncheck "Automatically Restart"

That way if you get BSOD, you can see it on the screen.

Then look for the memory dump like @EddieJennings stated. Then use program @DustinB3403 mentioned to figure out WTH is going on.

If you don't know if it is the whole host, whip up a linux machine real quick and let it run. If the Exchange server halts, see if you can still access the linux machine. Just an option.

Will do, thanks for the tips.

G I Jones

@DustinB3403 said in New VM keeps turning off:

@G-I-Jones said in New VM keeps turning off:

@EddieJennings said in New VM keeps turning off:

You've likely checked for this, but are there events in the Application logs that talk about a bugcheck around the time of the shutdown, or does a C:\Windows\Memory.dmp file exist that was created around that time?

There were no events about a bugcheck around the time of the shutdown. Something I do find curious though, is the fact there isn't a %SYSTEMROOT%\MEMORY.DMP file at all.

There usually isn't if verbose logging isn't enabled with these types of crashes.

Ah, well it is now, so time will tell I suppose. Thanks again.

EddieJennings

@G-I-Jones said in New VM keeps turning off:

@EddieJennings said in New VM keeps turning off:

You've likely checked for this, but are there events in the Application logs that talk about a bugcheck around the time of the shutdown, or does a C:\Windows\Memory.dmp file exist that was created around that time?

There were no events about a bugcheck around the time of the shutdown. Something I do find curious though, is the fact there isn't a %SYSTEMROOT%\MEMORY.DMP file at all.

You usually only see it if there was a bugcheck, blue screen, and then it's not 100% of the time -- at least in my experience. So I was curious if on the off chance there was one that you could investigate.

Dashrender

@G-I-Jones said in New VM keeps turning off:

I don't know if it's the whole host, or the Guest itself as I don't notice it until I get calls about Outlook not connecting, but I'm finding no reason or cause.

Have you determined if the whole ESXi host is doing down?

G I Jones

Okay, so I guess maybe it was one of the guest updates or something that fixed it. It hasn't happened once yet. Solved?

IRJ

@G-I-Jones said in New VM keeps turning off:

Okay, so I guess maybe it was one of the guest updates or something that fixed it. It hasn't happened once yet. Solved?

It always sucks not knowing root cause, but having it working is better then being broken.

You might consider setting up some type of monitoring for it temporarily

Net Runner

@IRJ said in New VM keeps turning off:

You might consider setting up some type of monitoring for it temporarily

I've had a similar issue a while ago that was caused by a memory leak in Exchange itself. It kept consuming more and more RAM and at the end of the day crashed the whole VM with a blue screen. It was happening like once a week usually on weekends thus I didn't pay too much attention to the issue since nobody complained. However, it got worth with time so I had to investigate what is actually going on and take measures like adding more ram, defragging the DB and so on.

Drop some monitoring agent inside the Exchange VM like Veeam One Monitor to be able to understand what's going on or choose something from the recommended tools here.