Intermitent network disconnect in VM using E1000E NIC

[Jocelyn_Viau]

Hi,

We just installed three new Windows Server 2012 and one new Windows 8 VMs on ESXi 5.1. On those VMs, we get a lot of errors in the System Event log about network disconnects. According to the logs, the network disconnects for about one second as we get another event saying that a network connection was established at 1 Gbps just after. Just on the day of January 28, this problem occured 85 times on a single server VM.

Those VMs are using the recommended E1000E NIC with vmx-09 hardware version. The Tools are installed and are current. All VMs are connected to the same vSwitch which has a dedicated physical port to the gigabit network switch (no NIC teaming and no VLAN tagging). The VMs are running from the same datastore that uses local disks setup in RAID 10 with a hardware RAID controller (LSI 2108 chipset).

Of course, when the alledged disconnect occurs, Windows shuts down momentarily network bound services (such as NetBIOS Helper service) and brings it back right away when the reconnection occurs. This annoying problem also causes interruptions in file transfers on network shares, so it is not just a harmless error that can be ignored.

Here is an example of the disconnect event:

Log Name:      System
Source:        e1iexpress
Date:          2013-01-29 10:53:13
Event ID:      27
Task Category: None
Level:         Warning
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      --- censored by me! ---
Description:
Intel(R) 82574L Gigabit Network Connection
Network link is disconnected.

Here is the reconnection 1 second later:

Log Name:      System
Source:        e1iexpress
Date:          2013-01-29 10:53:14
Event ID:      32
Task Category: None
Level:         Information
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      --- censored by me! ---
Description:
Intel(R) 82574L Gigabit Network Connection
Network link has been established at 1Gbps full duplex.

Here are some interesting facts about this problem:

• We checked the physical link to the host and everything is fine. We don't have any disconnection reported by the host or the switch.
• The problem occurs in all VM which have E1000E NIC, but not at the same time.
• Changing the VM NIC type to E1000 solves the problem: no more network disconnection reported by the VM and file transfers are not interrupted anymore.
• The disconnects are not evenly spaced in time. It may occur many times in the same minute and then nothing for more than an hour.

Has anyone had this kind of problem before? Any clue about what may be the cause?

We can still use the workaround we found and change the NICs to E1000 but it is not the one recommended for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012.

Thanks for your help!

[GauravMajithia]

Try changing the NIC's network adapter link speed from auto negotiate to manuall as per your requirement to 100 MBps or 1000 MBPS.

This might solve your issue.

[Jocelyn_Viau]

Forcing the NIC to 1 Gbps did not do anything. The disconnections still happen.

However forcing the NIC to 100mbps solves the problem, but it is not a viable solution for a server, expecially a file or database server. I would prefer to change the NIC type to E1000 and run at 1 Gbps.

[Tamerz]

I am getting the exact same issue. Also a Server 2012 machine on ESXi 5.1 with the latest guest tools installed.

[Jocelyn_Viau]

Here is an update about this issue.

The E1000 NIC also show disconnects but not as frequent as the E1000E. So both Intel NICs are problematic. I tried installing the latest Intel drivers (downloaded from www.intel.com) without any significant results, the network still disconnects as often as before.

In the meantime, I have switched all NICs to VMXNET3 and it works very well.

But I am still looking for an answer to this problem because two of the three NIC types recommended for Windows Server 2012 are not viable.

[a_nut_in]

Is anything logged in the vmware.log for the virtual machine or the vmkernel.log for the host?

I know there's an MSI X issue doing the rounds. Would be interesting to see if that's what's being hit

Also could you run the following command and share the result?

esxcfg-nics -l

[Jocelyn_Viau]

There is no matching event in vmware.log nor in vmkernel.log. Here are the entries in vmware.log just before and after the time of the event I reported earlier. My VM is using the EST timezone and ESXi is using UTC, so that's why there is a 5 hour difference in the times.

2013-01-29T15:47:00.501Z| vcpu-0| I120: CDROM: Emulate GET CONFIGURATION RT 2 starting feature 81
2013-01-29T16:04:44.590Z| vcpu-0| I120: CDROM: Emulate GET CONFIGURATION RT 2 starting feature 42

I reproduced the error today (February 13). The issue occured at 13:14:54. There are no entries in vmkernel.log matching that time. Here are the entries before and after:

2013-02-13T18:13:54.260Z cpu3:4099)ScsiDeviceIO: 2329: Cmd(0x412400759580) 0x1a, CmdSN 0x4c1 from world 5059 to dev "naa.600605b000f90bb018a2f4d06a773444" failed H:0x0 D:0x2 P:0x0 Valid sense data: 0x5 0x24 0x0.
2013-02-13T18:16:57.722Z cpu1:4097)NMP: nmp_ThrottleLogForDevice:2319: Cmd 0x1a (0x4124007da540, 0) to dev "mpx.vmhba37:C0:T0:L0" on path "vmhba37:C0:T0:L0" Failed: H:0x0 D:0x2 P:0x0 Valid sense data: 0x5 0x20 0x0. Act:NONE

Here is the output of the esxcfg-nics -l command:

Name    PCI           Driver      Link Speed     Duplex MAC Address       MTU    Description
vmnic0  0000:06:00.00 e1000e      Up   1000Mbps  Full   30:85:a9:a7:cc:0d 1500   Intel Corporation 82574L Gigabit Network Connection
vmnic1  0000:07:00.00 e1000e      Up   1000Mbps  Full   30:85:a9:a7:cc:0e 1500   Intel Corporation 82574L Gigabit Network Connection 

vmnic0 is used for VMKermel (management) - vSwitch0

vmnic1 is used for VM network traffic - vSwitch1

[EnsignA]

Exactly where are you installing the Intel network drivers?  If you are installing them in the guest OS that is a problem, as the driver for the NIC is built into the VMware Tools.  It is a driver optimized for VMware that emulates an Intel NIC to the guest OS.  I also have to question use of the E1000/E1000E NICs for that vmware/os combination.  I would stick with the vmxnet adapter.

[Tamerz]

The E1000e adapter is the default for Windows 8 and Server 2012:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1001805

[Jocelyn_Viau]

EnsignA wrote:

Exactly where are you installing the Intel network drivers?  If you are installing them in the guest OS that is a problem, as the driver for the NIC is built into the VMware Tools.  It is a driver optimized for VMware that emulates an Intel NIC to the guest OS.  I also have to question use of the E1000/E1000E NICs for that vmware/os combination.  I would stick with the vmxnet adapter.

I tried installing the Intel drivers inside only one VM (guest OS) but that was AFTER installing a bare Windows with the VMware tools and seeing that the problem was occuring. I since uninstalled the Intel drivers because it did not make any difference.

Strangly, the driver used for the E1000E adapter in the guest OS even after installing the VMware tools is provided by Microsoft and not by VMware. The tools were installed using the "Complete" option.

Driver provider: Microsoft
Driver date: 2012-02-29
Driver version: 12.0.150

So far, I came to the same conclusion as you regarding the E1000/E1000E vs the VMXNET3. However, after reading a few articles on the web comparing the performance and overhead of the E1000, E1000E and VNXMET3 adapters, it seems that there are no significant performance degradation when using the emulated Intel adapters, especially between the E1000E and VMXNET3 on a gigabit physical network. So, since I don't need 10 Gbps link, I would prefer to use the driver that is actually recommended by VMware, the E1000E.

[danf201110141]

Has anyone else come across a solution for this?

I'm experiencing the same issues that only happen with ESXI 5.1 and Windows Server 2012.

Our Windows Server 2008 boxes on the same host with the same driver do not have this issue. It's only Server 2012.

[Aviator20111014]

Hello,

just to let you know you're not alone...

Same issue here, but still no solution.

ESXi 5.1 build  914609 + Windows Server 2012

Cheers

David

[a_nut_in]

Guys, would help if a parallel support ticket was opened with both MS and VMW if there are multiple instances of the issue being reported

[clockwork6666]

same problem here out of the blue. didnt change the config for months and now this exact same thing happens on different vmware-systems at the same time :smileysad:

[Leyuka]

Hello ,

Just a help for everyone with this problem :

After 10 days of research for our virtual datacenter behind a vcloud as iias ,  i found a solution .

I only run windows 2012 server .

Install vmware tools , remove e1000 network card after a vm stop, add a card same vswitch etc BUT with a vmxnet3 TYPE . DONT USE DEFAULT CARD

Start and enjoy this solution . E1000 and E1000e are just unstable in windows8 / windows 2012 , the network card reset randomly with or without heavy IO. No log in windows , and as a vcloud user i don"t have esxi logs (damn i don't like cloud) and provider don"t know why ...

[Leyuka]

And read that kb :

Choosing a network adapter for your virtual machine (1001805)

When we talk about windows 2012 we talk about vmxnet3 .

[auburntigerrich]

vSphere 5.1

ESXi build 1065491

We are experiencing a similar disconnect issue with our new Server 2012 VMs, however ours is a complete drop of connectivity which does not come back.  Windows claims it has "Internet" connectivity, but the VM is completely dark. 

Our NIC type was the old e1000; we are trying VMXNET 3 now.  Thank you for the tip!

[junkoo]

Hi Leyuka,

Thank you for your reply and sorry such us delayed.

It seems  vmxnet 3 is  right solution as you said and I found article as below;

Choosing a network adapter for your virtual machine

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1001805

-----

VMXNET 3 is supported only for virtual machines version 7 and later, with a limited set of guest operating systems:

32- and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows 7, 8, XP, 2003, 2003 R2, 2008, 2008 R2, Server 2012 and Server 2012 R2.

-----

Many thanks!

[Jim Allen]

Greetings,

Ditto.  After switching VNIC from E1000 and E1000E on two different VMs (Windows Server 2008 R2) from E1000, to VMXNET2 (Enhanced).  The random 'disconnects' reported by the guest OS have stopped.

ESXi hosts 5.1.0 1483097

VM Version 7 (both guests)

VMWare Tools - current.

[shaikhdaniaal]

Some of the VMs were having issues on this and I have tried to apply your solution Leyuka, will monitor for about a week to see how stable it is (on E1000E the disconnections occur 2-3 times per day on a VM).

Update: The VMs with the VMXNET3 NICs tend to hang and will not be powered on until changed back to E1000E. Not a fix. Message was edited by: shaikhdaniaal

[Delor]

Hello,

to keep this thread up I´m also raising my that my Windows 2012 R2 machines have the same Problem (only 2012 R2, the 2008 R2 does not have the issue!)

EventI27 e1iexpress with the Network Adapter E1000e.

The VMware version is 6.0 an the issue is still there.

I tried to switch the network adapter from a E1000e to a VMXNET3 in an windows 8 machine, the errors are now gone but now I got an other problem.

Now the machine does not lose the connection for a second but forever. When i connect via remote console the network of the machine works again and after about one hour of doing nothing the network of the machine is gone.

So switching to VMXNET3 is not a real option. Anyone got new info on how to solve this problem?

Greetings

B. Abraham

[Shottah]

I am seeing the same e1iexpress warnings in the system logs of my Win 2012 R2 x64 VMs running with e1000e Nics as others have stated.

VMware support refeerenced me to this article -  Win 2012 virtual machines using E1000/E1000e driver experience loss of network connectivity (2109922)

They advised that I change the nic type to the VMXNET3 nic as it is the "recommended" nic type for this OS.  Can anyone confirm that the connectivity issues have in fact been resolved after change the nic type to VMXNET3?  I really do nto want to create more problems in doign this as some people have posted.

[Shottah]

Has anyone else come across this issue?  Can we assume that the VMXNET3 adaptor type resolves this issue with E1000e NICs running windows 2012?

[schuylerthorne1530127]

Running ESXi 6 and 2012 R2 VMs.  With VMXNET3 adapters VMs will drop connectivity completely and will not come back.  Changing network labels around so it switches VLANs and then switching back to the correct label will sometimes bring the VM back and start pinging.

It actually happens on CentOS VMs as well.

Ridiculous, come on VMware.

[SimonBernCH]

Hi

I experience the same issue still with the latest esxi 5.5.0 and vCenter 5.5.0a. It gets very ennoying and I wonder if anyone has a fix beside the use of the vmxnet3 adapter which is not an option (10+Gbit). I need the E1000E or the E1000 working.

Thanks a lot for any reply.

Simon

[TedBWork]

Have you tried the following KB?:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=2058692&sliceId=1&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&dialogID=124387093&stateId=0%200%20124391023

(KB 2058692)  This KB was helpfull

I selected the VMXNET3 and also tried the e1000  It has not bombed on me yet but you are right this is quite annoying!

Also, this is happening to me on both ESXi 5.5 and 2012R2 (Patched as of December 13)

[Mr_Moose]

I am having this issue on Workstation 10 and Windows 8.1. I cannot select a diff card on Workstation has there been any developments on this?

[auburntigerrich]

I was able to resolve our issue by switching the vNIC to "e1000E" type via vSphere Client.  My issue was with ESXi, not Workstation, so I'm afraid I can't speak to that...

[Akelsey]

Hi everyone, i faced with problem as well.

I have a two network card "Intel Corporation 82574L Gigabit Network Connection", two guest OSes, Win2008 sp1 r2, and Windows 7 SP1, all VM are installed in ESXi 5.5. In VMs the nics are VMXNET 3 (i have already faced the problems with vpn connection on e1000e, and all new VMs are working with VMXNET3)

nic0 - vmkernel 192.168.50.30

When i am copying a big files inside VMs from physical comps - i lost connection to vmkernel. It restores after copying is completed. I cannot find any KB with solution. I tried to change to 100mbs, nothing changes.

[Akelsey]

Hi again, i solved my issue today, key reason of issue was not esxi, it was an switch, i forgot the name, i replaced it via cisco, and now it is ok.

[HenriqueSilvaLa]

Hi,

Same issue here,

My cenário same host 2 VM 1 server 2012 no issue E1000E and 1 server 2018 E1000E issue only afther a power failure (temporay fix with vmxnet3)

I add a second network card vmxnet3, start Windows and instal automatic driver by Windows update trough e100e, remove e100e and setup vmxnet3 ip.

before this i check all wired conections and switch as strange beavor link led off and on.

so i belive that can be a switch bad beavor caused by the power failure , i will replace sitch and return server to e100e nic and give feed back.

Sorry my english

[junkoo]

Hi,

I found Intel(R)  82574L Auto-Negotiation Link Setup  as below,

Intel® 82574 GbE Controller Family3.2.3 Auto-Negotiation & Link Setup Feature (Document)

http://www.versalogic.com/support/Downloads/PDF/Intel_82574L_Datasheet.pdf

p.43

3.2.3 Auto-Negotiation & Link Setup Feature

This event that "Network link is disconnected." comes from default setting as Auto-Negotiation "OFF"

that means before finished auto-negotiation,  this driver checking link condition and give back this message.

If appeared "Link up" sign  after this message(Link has been disconnected),  we can ignore this event.

But you wont show this event, you can remove with setting as Auto-Negotiation "OFF" on the device manager.

I hope this helped.

[Jocelyn_Viau]

This information is interresting but it does not explain why the VM needs to re-negociate the network link and, when it occurs, all network connections are dropped. The problem is not just an annoying message. If it was, I would just have "muted" the alert in our monitoring system. The problem is the frequently dropping network connections and, when it occurs, any running transfer (ex: file copy) is aborted.

I posted the first article more than a year and a half ago and the problem is still unsolved even after several VMware patches. The problem seem to also have been ported to ESXi 5.5. At the moment, I have replaced all the network adapters of my VMs to VMXNET3. It is the only workaround that works for now.

[jjharrison81]

Has this been addressed by VMWare yet in any way?  If so, I'm having some trouble finding the right keywords to locate it.

I'm configuring several new 2012 VMs and before they are put into production I would like to know what the best practice is for a Server 2012 R2 NIC right now.

VMWare's KB on choosing a NIC is vague at best and completely ignores this problem with some NICs not actually working on Windows Server 2012 R2 in certain scenarios.  I am also seeing a bunch of articles on the VMXNET3 causing PSOD issues on Windows Server 2012 and that seems to be the only alternative to E1000 or E1000E right now.

[Corpus_no]

Time goes and no solution?

We still have this issue in a fully patched 5.5 environment and it doesn't seem to be any final solution to this problem yet.

Of cause, there is always the option to change to VMXNET3 for the affected VM's, but I would really like to have the option to choose if it's supposed to work.

--

Øystein.

[TedBWork]

I really dont think we are going to see anything until VMware 6.  There seems to be other threads that have similar problems and no results.  I was told that we can expect fixes with 2 major issues that will be resolved in 6.  However that doesn't mean that they wont fix this but I cant get any more info

[JSpoor]

Does anyone have a solution for this?

I have a number of Win 2012 guests, like Exchange and SQL, both clustered.

"swapping" to VMXNET 3 is not an easy task...

I also noticed that the drivers are not proeprly setup as all the descriptions are unknown. This is seen on ALL my Windows 2012 R2 servers...

The description for Event ID 27 from source e1iexpress cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

If I could at least solve this would at least be a little step forward.

Thnx

[MatteoMarchetti]

Same problem here, Windows 2012 VM disconnects from the network.

Vmware support said "I have checked and I found that the VM named "XXX" is using E1000E network adapter. There is an open issue with this driver where it is breaking the connectivity occasionally for the VMs in unpredicted intervals. No actual solution yet, but as a workaround can you please re-configure the VM to use E1000 or VMXNET3 vNIC adapter within this VM?" without quoting any KB about this known bug.

Does anyone have some more info?

[DATECProGmbH]

Same problem here. Happens under 2012 R2 VMs with E1000 Network cards. Problem occurs also under 5.5  ESX Servers.

Switching to VMXNET3 is not an acceptable option as all VMs need E1000 cards in order to properly function with our Server Deployment Tool. For the moment this issue happened 2 or 3 times in 2 months. Although this isn't much, having a bug in our environment which could impact on critical systems is very bad.

Can't understand why this thread is open for now 2 years without any solution or even answer from Vmware when so much people have this problem...

[spell08]

Hi,

Receiving similar error in Server 2012 and 2012r2. we've found that e1000e works more efficiently than e1000 for server 2012, but still causes disconnect issues with server2012r2

For compatibility reasons, we cannot use the vmxnet adapter for compatibility reasons. We found the following workaround caused Event ID 27 to subside:

In Command Prompt

       netsh int tcp set global chimney=disabled

       netsh int tcp set global rss=disabled

       netsh int tcp set global netdma=disabled

From network-adapter properties > Advanced settings, Disable following TCP-offloading options:

       -IPv4 Checksum Offload

       -Large Send Offload V2 (IPv4)

       -Large Send Offload V2 (IPv6)

       -TCP Checksum Offload (IPv4)

       -TCP Checksum Offload (IPv6)

Over months, this has yet to cause any problems with our applications and has ceased the errors. This still needs a permanent remediation from VMWare though.

[tirso]

Is this the solution?: Windows 2012 virtual machines using E1000/E1000e driver experience loss of network connectivity (2109922) | VMware KB

[Ben123201110141]

I have some Windows 10 machines running on ESXi and we have also had the issues where periodically the machine stops responding to pings, you cant remote desktop in anymore, or access any web content from the machine. The Windows event schedules shows many thousands of network card resets. So I shut the machine down, removed the E1000 network card via vSphere, started it back up again, shut it down, added the VMXNET3 network card instead, and stared it back up again, and we have not seen the issue since. Googling suggests that the E1000 is old, intended for backwards compatibility only and not recommended unless you need it because it performs extra emulation which is costly. Some people also found that upgrading ESXi and the vmtools and then reinstalling the E1000 card also works, but thatis more effort.

[petarbr]

Hi all, and maybe someone else who will have the same issue in the near future...
The same things is still happening regardless vm nic adapter: old E1000, E1000E or VMXNET3!
As Dolor in this post said the same thing with losing network connectivity:
"Now the machine does not lose the connection for a second but forever..."
I am on the ESXi vSphere version 6.7u3.
I have even tried VM  (hardware) upgrade to the last supported by windows 2012R2,
version 13 and upgrade of VMware tools without results - the same issue with disconnected adapter
inside VM (no network connection, adapter enabled, everything looks fine, have the ARP packet traced on ESXi host).
I have reproduced the error in 50% of cases with simple storage vMotion (ex. sMotion),
so compute resources are not changed, not physical adapter of the ESXi host!
I know that win 2012R2 is EOS now, but the clients will not migrate for months from now for sure, maybe the whole 2022 year.

If someone has some more ideas or has found the the solution I will appreciate.
And once more, VMXNET3 is not the solution;
The same problem in the same range occurs in 50% of tries, and dozen of tests are done. 

P.S.: The network connectivity is established after disconnecting VM net adapter through the vSphere web console,
waiting a few moments, and connecting it again. In some cases I had to do it twice, ... And sometimes,
if it is an option, I managed to have connectivity after shutting down VM and power it again on the same host.