VMware Tools - Windows Storport Miniport Driver has timed out a request

[Tore]

Hi Folks.

After installing VMware Tools 12.5.2 some weeks ago, I experience an increased rate of these ": Windows Storport Miniport Driver has timed out a request" warnings.

They occur on VMs that do not have snapshots, and not at the same time when centralized backups have been run on that particular VM.

Different MS version as well. 

Have anyone else experienced the same?

Regards, Tore

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Best Regards,
Tore
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[Andrea Consalvi]

Hi Tore,

Yes, this is a known issue starting with VMware Tools 12.5.x, especially on Windows VMs using paravirtual or LSI Logic SCSI controllers. The "Storport Miniport Driver has timed out a request" warning typically appears when the new VMware Tools storage I/O filters trigger delays under certain conditions, even without snapshots or backup jobs running.

1. Roll back to VMware Tools 12.3.5 or 12.2.5 - many users report stability returning after downgrade.

2. If you prefer to stay on 12.5.2, disable vmscsi timeout warnings in the guest registry as a temporary mitigation:

   
   
   
   
   
   
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\pvscsi\Parameters
   DWORD: DriverVerifier
   Value: 0
   
   
   
   
   

3. Monitor storage latency - in some environments this exposes subtle I/O contention issues that became more visible with 12.5.x.

[Tore]

Hi Andrea.

Thank you for the information.

Is this official VMware intel?

Cant find any information in the Release Notes for 12.5.x.

Regards, Tore

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Best Regards,
Tore
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[Andrea Consalvi]

Hi Tore,

no, this is not official VMware communication, but rather an issue observed by several users (myself included) after upgrading to VMware Tools 12.5.x, particularly on Windows VMs using paravirtual or LSI Logic SCSI controllers.

This is therefore a field observation, shared across various technical threads as a possible workaround, but not officially documented at this time.

Downgrading VMware Tools is certainly not recommended by VMware, especially due to security and compatibility reasons. However, in some cases, it has been attempted as a temporary measure to bypass the issue.

As correctly suggested by Adam, it’s also advisable to proceed by opening a support request.

[Mudassar Suhail]

Andrea Consalvi,
We are continuing to experience the "Storport Miniport Driver has timed out a request" alerts across multiple Windows VMs, even after applying the recommended mitigation steps.

These alerts are occurring on systems running VMware Tools versions 12.3.x, 12.2.x, and 12.5.2, and persist despite setting the following registry key as advised:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\pvscsi\Parameters
DWORD: DriverVerifier
Value: 0
Unfortunately, the alerts are still being triggered and are reopening after being cleared. This suggests that the issue may not be isolated to the VMware Tools version or the DriverVerifier setting alone.

Could you please advise on any additional steps or updated guidance to fully resolve this issue? We would also appreciate any insights into whether a patch or updated driver is being planned to address this behavior.

Thank you for your support.

[Adam Ru]

Hello all,

We are not aware of any known issue related to the "Windows Storport
Miniport Driver" that would require downgrading VMware Tools as a
workaround.

If you are encountering this issue, please open a Support Request (SR) and
attach the VM-support bundle. This will allow our engineering team to
perform a detailed analysis.

Best regards,
Adam

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[Tore]

Hi Adam.

I have created a support case as well. 

Regards, Tore.

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Best Regards,
Tore
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[Martin Carnegie]

Hi Tore, did you ever receive a solution to this issue? We are randomly having the same issues. We thought we had it addressed with a firmware upgrade on the ESX host, but we are still seeing the alerts.

This ended up causing IO issues on an SQL server that ended up impacting an application connected to the SQL server.

Thanks,

Martin

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[Tore]

Hi Martin.

We tried a Broadcom support case but after a while got the answer that we had to create an MS case.
Then summer holidays occurred, but since mid-July, we haven't had any more miniport warnings.
 So that also could have something to do with Microsoft July patches installed around the same days the miniport error stopped.

So suddenly, (for the time being), there were no more miniport errors.

Regards, Tore

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Best Regards,
Tore
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[Martin Carnegie]

Hi Tore,

Thanks for the quick response.

I am going to look at the patch state of our servers and see it I can correlate the error to the patch state. I know that the recent system I had the issues with does not have the July patches, but gets them tomorrow. There were a few non-prod systems with the errors that should have had the patches applied, but I need to check the timing.

I am also looking into the firmware and other driver updates on the esx host systems (HP Gen10) to see if there is anything there. I know we updated some recently and need to see if the error occurred on the updated hosts or ones that still need to be updated.

Thanks again.

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[Martin Carnegie]

Just a follow up as your post got me thinking. 

Since you mentioned that this seemed to resolve itself after the July patches, I decided to take a look at the patches and to see if the storport.sys driver was modified.

This is a list of the April-August updates:

KB5053596: "storport.sys","10.0.17763.6893","05-Mar-2025","19:45","668,168"
KB5059091: "storport.sys","10.0.17763.6893","14-Apr-2025","23:27","668,168"
KB5061978: "storport.sys","10.0.17763.6893","24-May-2025","05:15","668,168"
KB5060531: "storport.sys","10.0.17763.7434","04-Jun-2025","13:47","668,664"
KB5062557: "storport.sys","10.0.17763.7553","03-Jul-2025","21:40","668,680"
KB0563877: "storport.sys","10.0.17763.7553","08-Aug-2025","16:35","668,680"

As you can see, there was an update in June and then another in July. So it is possible that whatever was changed in the July update addressed the issue. So far I have not found anything specifically stating that.

We did start seeing the issue shortly after the June patches, so fingers crossed that this resolves the issue.

KB articles if you are interested.

KB5053596: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/march-11-2025-kb5053596-os-build-17763-7009-d6bd4320-de45-4d63-ad47-b7c4789421c4
KB5059091: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/april-16-2025-kb5059091-os-build-17763-7249-out-of-band-328ff8b5-7c6b-4f06-95cc-67fbd18b3ffb
KB5061978: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/may-27-2025-kb5061978-os-build-17763-7322-out-of-band-3e05da94-ec79-431d-ad03-4688500c43de
KB5060531: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/june-10-2025-kb5060531-os-build-17763-7434-32fce7e7-305d-4d32-913f-3fdc0709a763
KB5062557: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/july-8-2025-kb5062557-os-build-17763-7558-9a2cd65b-c7a7-4331-87c4-84790511f6fe
KB0563877: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/august-12-2025-kb5063877-os-build-17763-7678-8944ed94-aec7-4780-b0a0-1164ba421379

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