The vpxd process becomes unresponsive after upgrading to vCenter Server 5.5

Symptoms

• The vpxd.exe process continually fails.
• You are unable to log in to vCenter Server.
• Windows Service Manager and service.msc show VMware VirtualCenter Server service as Starting.
• In Windows Task Manager, the vpxd process continually recycles.
• A 0 or 1 byte vpxd.dmp file is generated in the vCenter Server log directory, located at C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\Logs.
• In the C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\vpxd.log file, you see entries similar to:
  
  <YYYY-MM-DD>T<TIME> [16900 verbose 'VpxProfiler'] [1+] [ORM] Load: vim.vm.ConfigInfo, Id: 361
  <YYYY-MM-DD>T<TIME> [16900 verbose 'VpxProfiler'] [2+] [BulkLoadDbContent]
  <YYYY-MM-DD>T<TIME> [09124 trivia 'MoLock' opID=SWI-ba59244] Waiting on vm-361 (mode: EXCLUSIVE)
  <YYYY-MM-DD>T<TIME>[06624 warning 'utilvpxdDbLoad'] [ORM] Load: Missing mapping for property hardware.device.backing.backingObjectId 
  <YYYY-MM-DD>T<TIME> [06624 warning 'utilvpxdDbLoad'] [ORM] Load: Missing mapping for property hardware.device.backing.backingObjectId 
  <YYYY-MM-DD>T<TIME> [06624 info 'Default'] CoreDump: Writing minidump
  Note: The preceding log excerpts are only examples. Date, time, and environmental variables may vary depending on your environment. 

Purpose

Vpxd process being unresponsive after upgrading to vCenter Server 5.5 is a known issue affecting vCenter Server 5.5.

Cause

This issue occurs due to the thread stack size changing in vCenter Server 5.5.  When the VMware VirtualCenter Server service performs a validation on its Inventory data, there may be excessive snapshots that over running the smaller stack.

Resolution

This is a known issue affecting VMware vCenter Server 5.5. 

Currently, there is no resolution.

An alarm can be created to alert if virtual machines in the environment are running on a snapshot. For more information, see Configuring VMware vCenter Server to send alarms when virtual machines are running from snapshots (1018029).

To work around this issue, increase the threadstack size in the vpxd.cfg file:

1. Stop the vCenter Server service. For more information, see Stopping, starting, or restarting vCenter Server services (1003895).
2. From the vCenter Server, navigate to C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\.
3. Open the vpxd.cfg file using a text editor.
4. Change the number in <ThreadStackKb></ThreadStackKb> to 1024 or add <ThreadStackSizeKb>1024</ThreadStackSizeKb> under <threadPool>:
   
   Caution: Entries within the vpxd.cfg file are case sensitive.
   
   For example:
   
   
   <vmacore>
   <threadPool>
   <TaskMax>90</TaskMax>
   <ThreadNamePrefix>vpxd</ThreadNamePrefix>
   <ThreadStackSizeKb>1024</ThreadStackSizeKb>
   </threadPool>
   <ssl>
   <useCompression>true</useCompresion>
   </ssl>
   </vmacore>
5. Save the changes and close the editor window.
6. Start the VMware VirtualCenter Server service .

Note: In some cases, the vpxd process may fail without creating a dump file or creating a 0 byte file. If you experience this issue, try one of these options: 

• Enable the User-Mode dumps of the application. For more information, see the Microsoft article Collecting User-Mode Dumps.
• Use the ADPlus tool from Microsoft. For more information, see Microsoft Knowledge Base article 286350.
  
  Note: The preceding link were correct as of June 25, 2014. If you find a link is broken, provide feedback and a VMware employee will update the link.