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I have a VMware ESXi server which has been up and running for nearly 200 days. The past few days, when I try to connect to it using the VMware vSphere Client, I am unable to connect. After entering my username and password, I see the little spinning wheel and the status line say "Connecting..." and then "Loading Inventory...", and then I receive an error message:

Error Message Screenshot

The server 'my.host.name' could not interpret the client's request. (The remote server returned an error: (503) Server Unavailable

Call "ServiceInstance.RetrieveContent" for object "ServiceInstance" on Server "my.host.name" failed.

I am able to SSH in to the VMware ESXi server. All virtual machines seem to be up and running fine, so I want to know beforehand if I need to bring them down for maintenance!!! If methods proposed in your answer would interfere with running VMs please clearly state that so I know to prepare for downtime. Thanks!

How can I resolve this error condition on VMware ESXi?

(I'd post the version number but I don't know how to get it without the vSphere console!)

EDIT: Roughly a month after I asked this question, the server inexplicably rebooted itself. I don't know if it panicked or what happened... but after it rebooted, this problem was gone. So I can't test / confirm any of the answer unless the problem reappears (which I hope it does not!)

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2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

You need to restart the vmware management services. Luckily, this is easy (since you have SSH access) and non-impactful to the virtual machines.

In a nutshell, SSH to the esx frame as root and then run one of the two following commands (depending on if it is esx/i):

For ESX:

service mgmt-vmware restart

For ESXi:

/sbin/services.sh restart

See this article for full details

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Thanks. This probably would have solved the problem! Sadly the server crashed a couple weeks ago and the problem is gone now. – Josh Nov 3 '11 at 12:21
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This VMware KB article seems to match your described symptom. Verify that your DNS is up and running from the ESXi server's point of view.

Option 2: Can you verify, that your vCenter Server is up, and the service is started?

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Well, it sure seems to match except that it says "it is not possible to connect to the ESX host using vCenter Server [...] for 30-40 minutes" and it's been working fine in my case for ~200 days... Also, DNS is working... – Josh Sep 25 '11 at 16:23
You wrote that you could ssh into the server. Did you verify that DNS is working on the server? In this communities.vmware.com/message/1316434 thread a guy had identical problem as you describe. And it was DNS problem :). – Paweł Brodacki Sep 25 '11 at 16:49
When I ssh in, I see /etc/resolv.conf does contain a nameserver line, and I can ping both google.com as well as the hostname of my server, so I'm reasonably sure DNS is workig. I don't have a vCenter server, only a single ESXi server. – Josh Sep 26 '11 at 12:36
If you can ping them by name, then DNS does seem to work. In that case, there may be nobody listening... Take a look at kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/… and see (netstat -in) if anything is listening on the ports, the client connects to. You may need to restart management service. – Paweł Brodacki Sep 26 '11 at 12:58
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