HAL_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Windows Server 2019

[the4amfriend]

I've got a Windows server 2019 running with 2 CPUs and 8GB memory with a 500GB hard disk under esxi 7.0.3U. Ever so often, the server crashes with 'HAL_INITIALIZATION_FAILED, collecting logs will restart once done'. And the dreaded blue screen just hangs my VM and never recovers. I restart the VM and everything is fine.

I had 32GB RAM and I think it was fine then, but I know I don't use the server much so I've brought its usage down to 8GB RAM. Would this be causing the problem? Have any of you faced similar problems with Windows servers on esxi?

[Daniel Casota]

Hi,

server crashes on return from sleep could be related to 'wake up from sleep' usb device settings.

[RB_NZ]

Same problem here - Server 2019 on esxi 7.0.3. with BSOD due to HAL Initialization Failure.

We have just updated our 6 esxi hosts from 6.7 to the latest build of 7.0.3 over the new year period. One of the Server 2019 VMs that is now giving the BSOD had been running fine when the hosts were esxi 6.7. Other Server 2019 VMs on the same host dont have any problem. Another Server 2019 VM that is giving BSOD was a fresh build on a 7.0.3 hosts..... yet other VMs that have been newly built are fine...... VMotion to another host doesnt change anything, BSOD still randomly occurs on the same VMs.

[Daniel Casota]

Is it the VMware release vCenter 7.03Uj, with ESXi 7.0Ui or a vendor specific ESXi 7.03 release?

Accordingly to the ESXi 7.0U3i release notes PR2983043 addresses a resolved bsod issue. In addition, there were some vmfs6 resolved issues in esxi 3.0u3f. Could you share vCenter, ESXi and vm log files?

[RB_NZ]

We upgrade from 6.7 to the HPE image VMware-ESXi-7.0.3-20842708-HPE-703.0.0.11.1.0.25-Dec2022.iso

PR2983043 is not related as the BSOD is happening randomly, not after the migration. And is also happening to a newly build Server 2019 VM.

[Daniel Casota]

If I've understood you right, it hasn't a correlation with the 6.7 - 7.03i migration because even with a new vm the bsod happens as well, but with 6.7 esxi release a Microsoft Windows Server 2019 vm worked flawlessly, right?

Has the Microsoft Windows Server 2019 vm usb hardware configured ? is hyper-v configured ? Are there differences to the configuration on esxi 6.7 ?

Open a VMware service request, if you cannot share logfiles publicly. That's okay.

edited (same issue weblink)
- https://communities.vmware.com/t5/ESXi-Discussions/ESXi-7-0-u3-Guest-OS-BSOD-HAL-INITIALIZATION-FAILED-5c/td-p/2931889 

 

Some impact thoughts on hypervisor scheduler type on windows server, high precision event timer and windows defender service necessary exclusions ?

[the4amfriend]

There's no VM USB configured to this device. Apologies about the version number as I just verified and the host server ALWAYS has been on VMware ESXi, 7.0.2, 17867351. But the windows server's memory was reduced to 8GB as its not used much. As far as I can see, that's the only change that has occurred. 

Also Hyper-V is not setup on the Windows server. Can you please assist in finding out what could be the problem?

 

[Daniel Casota]

a VMware service request is best.

patching to the latest greatest (ESXi, virtual hardware, Windows os, WinDefender, VMware Tools) in some customer environments isn’t accepted without analysis and root cause relation.

Hence, log files (Windows Server event log, VMware vm log ++) would be helpful as they contain technical details.