Can't connect to vSphere vCenter server (VMware 5.5)

[CapnPugwash]

Hi,

 

Today I've been unable to connect to the vSphere vCenter server (VMware 5.5) via either the client or the web interface.

 

The client returns a 'can't connect' message. A browser will return a 'Page can't be displayed' message.

 

I've tried this on a number of different machines.

 

I can access any of the ESX hosts via the vSphere client. I can access the host that the vCenter server sits on - it looks fine. I've restarted it but it's still the same.

 

I can ping the address of the vCenter server and I get a reply as expected.

 

Looking at the logs, the line line that sticks out is "System.Net.Sockets.SocketException: A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond xx.xxx.xx.xx:443"

 

The only thing that's changed in the last few days is we have a new internet connection / proxy server.

 

Can anyone think of things that I can check?

 

Cheers

[Chris_]

This sounds like the same issue we had today. Veeam had failed to backup over the weekend with an error along the lines of 'unable to communicate with x.x.x.x' which was the IP of our vCenter server. Couldn't load the vSphere console either. RDP'd onto the vCenter server, installed a couple of small Windows updates, rebooted and it was all back to normal.

[CapnPugwash]

Hi, we also use Veeam so can't backup. Our VCenter server runs as a self contained virtual machine so your solution wont work for me, unfortunately.

 

Not sure where to begin with this. At a guess I'm going to have to log into the VCenter console and check services are running etc but I'm not really sure what to do.

[Tefters]

It's quite simple really, https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2054085

The VM is clearly functional so it's going to be a service relating to the cluster management. Do you but SA with your VM licensing, if you do you could just raise a support ticket.

[Tefters]

1 other simple quick fix would be to restore the VM appliance from Veeam direct to a host at a known working time

[CapnPugwash]

OK, digging in deeper : the logs make no mention of DB errors & the VCenter VM has plenty of disk space. I can ping the IP. I can open the host that the VCenter sits on, open the console and log in. If I check the services that are running; everything seems to be fine.

 

if I look at the Veeam logs I can see the backups were running fine until I switched over to the new internet connection. The failure messages from Veeam say 'can't connect to http://VCenter:xxxx'

 

I think the problem is the new broadband router is blocking traffic to ports that VCenter uses.. Getting the ISP to check this.

Edited April 12, 2016 by CapnPugwash

[Domino]

OK, digging in deeper : the logs make no mention of DB errors & the VCenter VM has plenty of disk space. I can ping the IP. I can open the host that the VCenter sits on, open the console and log in. If I check the services that are running; everything seems to be fine.

 

if I look at the Veeam logs I can see the backups were running fine until I switched over to the new internet connection. The failure messages from Veeam say 'can't connect to http://VCenter:xxxx'

 

I think the problem is the new broadband router is blocking traffic to ports that VCenter uses.. Getting the ISP to check this.

 

Why is traffic from an internal server to an internal server even touching the router?

[CapnPugwash]

Why is traffic from an internal server to an internal server even touching the router?

 

I don't know & on my part it's pure guesswork based on:

 

* this problem happened when we got the new internet connection

* The VCenter itself looks fine in every way

* It's not a DNS/DHCP error

* The error messages from Veeam suggest traffic is being pushed to VCenter via HTTP/S

 

It could be that I'm completely wrong but hopefully I'll find out today.

 

Our VMware & Veeam were setup by a third party IT company

[Davit2005]

Why is traffic from an internal server to an internal server even touching the router?

 

 

 

Are there vLANS in use?? Router was being used for IntervLAN routing possibly, never really ideal???

Edited April 13, 2016 by Davit2005

[CapnPugwash]

Are there vLANS in use?? Router was being used for IntervLAN routing possibly, never really ideal???

 

No VLANS or anything like that. It doesn't really make a lot of sense to me that it would be the new broadband router that was the problem... but it's so weird that this happened at the same time the router went in & VCenter doesn't seem to be in any kind of error state (apart from not being able to connect to it!)

 

Also the Veeam error messages... Veeam is definitely trying to communicate via HTTPS and failing...

 

If anyone has any other ideas of things I could check, I'm all ears!

[CapnPugwash]

Just to dot the i's, I shut down the VCenter server and then tried to ping it & happily failed, so it's not an IP conflict.

[twin--turbo]

Have you tried running the client on the server?

 

TT

[CapnPugwash]

Have you tried running the client on the server?

 

TT

 

I haven't tried that - I'll have to look up how to do it.

 

Does anyone know how I can test if it's a firewall issue? I've tried Telnet but that only tells me that the connection times out...

[Davit2005]

Browse to a host and download the client onto the server.

 

When installed launch the client and in the IP address name type 127.0.0.1 .

 

Looking at my setup using netstat the client seems to be using port 8084 to cummunicate with the server.