Some VMs not showing in vcenter

[jbeamboy]

I have two host running ESXi 5.0 which I have succesfully added to my vcenter (5.0 client and server).  However one of the hosts is missing 3 vm's from its inventory.  I can connect directly to the ESXi 5.0 server and see all vm's running.  I am sure it is not coincidence that these three servers are my only linux servers (canned Squid proxy servers).

1) I stopped and started the Vcenter server services.  same results.

2) I have removed and readded the host. same results, but I do want to note that during the add process I did see that all servers showed in the list of vm's running on the host.

Thanks for any help!

J

[Troy_Clavell]

while the Host is in your vCenter inventory, you may want to restart the management agents on the ESXi Host in question.

[Ranjna Aggarwal]

Try to restart the management agents on esxi host

[BSRKrishna]

To restart the management agents on ESXi:

Connect to the console of your ESXi host.

Press F2 to customize the system.

Login as root.

Use the Up/Down arrows to navigate to Restart Management Agents.

Note: In ESXi 4.1 and ESXi 5.0, this option is available under Troubleshooting Options.

Press Enter.

Press F11 to restart the services.

When the service has been restarted, press Enter.

Press Esc to log out of the system.

Thanks & Regards,

BSR Krishna

[john23]

--If you connect the vm from vi client, are you seeing these vms?

--check vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms output, are you seeing these vms?

[jbeamboy]

Here is what I have done.

Restarted the management services on host esxi

removed host from vcenter

restart vcenter services

re-added host

(in that order)

Still missing my 3 linux squid proxy servers.. (All other servers are windows 2003 or windows 2008 R2)

More Info

I am running only the vcenter essentials (not the plus) licensing issue?

[Ranjna Aggarwal]

If that is possible try to shut down all the machine and then remove host from vCenter and Re-add it to vCenter

[jbeamboy]

I can try that but it will have to wait until after hours.  I post the results..

J

[john23]

Good directly you can see the virtual machine..no need to run that command :smileyhappy:

If possible remove host this vcenter and try to add another vcenter (if available), otherwise add in the same one.

[beckham007fifa]

are you keeping the host in the same cluster or something try adding it to different cluster. Also uninstalling vcenter agent would the thing you can do now.

Do one thing, Stop the management services for sometime and start it rather than restarting it, many times it does the trick.

do this:

disconnect the host

stop mangement services

delete vpxuser

start management services

add the host to the vcenter

also, which db are you using, is it on the same vcenter server or locaed somewhere else.

[jbeamboy]

I am running the vcenter server and database on the same server (the sql database installed as part of the vcenter server install). 

I thought the suggestion was to shut down all of my VMs on that host in question, reboot the host, and try re-adding the host to vcenter again.. that is what would have to wait until later...  maybe I misunderstood.  I am a bit new to vmware and might be getting some terms mixed up.

I have a small setup, two HP servers running esxi 5.0 (what I refer to as hosts).  Both of these hosts boot esxi off local drives(no vm's located on local drives).  I have an iSCSI SAN that both hosts connect to... VM's are located there. Let me know if this explains what you are asking about 'the same cluster'.

At this point I have removed both hosts from my vcenter, and shut down all vcenter services on the vcenter server.  Later I will bring down the VM's on both hosts and reboot both, and bring up one of the squid proxys on the other host.

I'll keep you posted.

Thanks for everything so far.

J

[jbeamboy]

---> John23     I belive you are asking if I connect directly to the host via the vsphere client do I see the VM's.  Yes I do, and on that note those three VM's are, and have been, up and running fine and can be managed while directly connected to the ESXi 5.0 host.

Forgive me, but I have only ever managed ESXi machines (3.x, 4.x, and now 5.0) via host console or client interfaces.  I am not familiar with cmd line at all.

J

[jbeamboy]

I have finally had the time to reboot both of my ESXi servers, and I am getting the same results.  What I did...

1) Removed both hosts from the Vcenter server and reboot Vcenter

2) Reboot both esxi servers

3) moved one of my squid proxy servers to the other esxi host (all three were on 1 host reviously)

4) re-added my esxi hosts to the Vcenter server

5) again... as part of adding the host, a dialog box shows the squid server(s) are part of what the host is runnning.

6) once my host completes the process of being added to vcenter, the squid serves do not show up in the list ov VM's currently running on the ISXE host.

Thoughts...

The servers not showing are my only linux serves

The squid VM's were downloaded as a pre configured package...  I did not create from scratch.  I just added the files to my datastore and added the VM.

These linux servers donot have vmtools installed

I can still connect directly to each host and see/manage my squid proxy servers.

I am not sure what else to look at.

Thanks for any input.

J

[slahm]

Sorry to revive this thread...  Did you ever find a resolution?  I have a 4.1.0 (260247) ESXi Host that is having the same issues, with a Windows 2008 R2 Guest.  The guest show up perfectly when accesing the host directly, and shows up in the list of hosts when adding to vCenter Server, but does not show up in the list once added.  I have tried most everything I have read here, and elsewhere, and wanted to find a resolution, rather than manually cloning the guest...  I would imagine that will fix it.

I was planning to move it via vCenter to a different host...

Thanks

Peter Hunt

[jbeamboy]

I have not found a solution to this problem as of yet.

[KonstantinMiklo]

guys i have a similar problem as well with 1 VM. I have had to migrate our vCenter VM from Hyper-V to ESXi so I used the vmware convertor but I had to migrate it a an ESXi host that wasn't added to vcenter because it said that I needed to have my vcenter server running which obviously couldn't be running as I was converting it.

Anyway the conversion went through fine and then I transferred the entire converted vcenter VM folder to a new datastore and then added it into the inventory whilst i was logged into vsphere and not vcenter, Now the vcenter server isn't showing up when i log into vcenter yet it shows up fine when i log directly into the host. I've restarted the vcenter server but still no luck.

What do I need to do?

[umarzuki]

have you got this sorted?

I have similar issue before too with vcenter vm. It happened after I edit its vmx file and reupload to its folder.

After I removed it from inventory, "add to inventory" option is grey.

The rebooted the esxi host where it last resides and it listed but in grey italic letters.

[Geoff_Rose]

What about adding it through the datastore?

IE browse the datastore then double click its VMX file to add it to the vCentre inventory.

The other way that might work is to move all the VMs off the host that has vCenter running and then add that host back in and import the VM at that time

[Oliver Hebel]

I was facing the same issue: VM not shown in inventory of vSphere Client.
(I had copied & re-registered a VM on a managed ESXi-host directly.)

Fixed it by browsing the VM's datastore via vSphere Client's WebUi & registering the VM by its .vmx-file.