VMWare ESX Host monitoring, 1 works 1 doesnt.

Question

I hope that someone can point me in the right direction here.  I have 2 ESX hosts.  Both are on the same subnet, Both are up, both run the same version of ESX (which is ESXi v4.0) yet for some reason I am unable to get information from one of them regarding their running guests.

As you can see in the first one here, which is working, I am able to get the ESX status and I am able to get further information about the guests.  SNMP is not yet configured on this server but thats coming soon.  The credentials work fine and I am able to get guest information.

On this ESX host, the ESX Status is "Undefined" ahd there is an error message "Error while polling VMWare device - 'Value cannot be null.  Parameter name: source'

The strange thing is that the credentials work, as seen in the ESX Polling OK, and the SNMP is not configured yet, same as on the one above.  Has anyone ever seen this issue before?

netlogix · Answer

They did a BuddyDrop for me too, but then I had to do a repair on "SolawrWinds Integrated Virtual Infrastructure Monitor v1" the next time I did an update, so watch for that then (don't do it now, because it will revert that DLL).

Glad things worked out!

zhollett · Answer

YAY, Fixed :)

The support guys at Solarwinds came thru and supplied a replacement DLL which resolved the issue.  I am not sure exactly what the difference was but it appears to be how Orion talks to ESXi 4 hosts.

The vmpoller was getting stuck because it was looking for information on the ESXi4 machine that was non-existing and was causing the entire poll for that server to fail.

They did something called a BuddyFix.  Worked perfectly.

Stopped the SolarWinds Job Engine v2, replaced the SolarWinds.VIM.VMware.Jobs.DLL, started the SolarWinds Job Engine v2... great success :)

netlogix · Answer

The whole "Undefined" thing was a bug that showed up for me in the RC, but they fixed mine.  Contact support.

I had to assign an IP address to NIC that was just sitting there by itself.

Then I had another one where I put in a DLL somewhere, but when I upgraded to the final, I had to do a "repair" on the "SolarWinds Integrated Virtual Infrastructure Monitor v1" from add/remove and that fixed it.

Am I rambling?  I must have had too much coffee...

1) run a repair from Add/Remove

2) check for an extra NIC without an IP (if thats the problem, report to support)

3) ask support because it's probably a bug.