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Directpath Crashes

leonichol

n00b
Joined
Nov 15, 2013
Messages
5
I recently bought a Asrock Q87M to run ESXi 5.5. All seems to have went swimmingly until I tried to passthrough my DVB-S2 card.

I am able to see the card on the passthrough list, and to assign it to a VM. Windows then correctly sees the card and I add a driver. However during the driver installation process the ESXi host freezes becoming completely unresponsive.

I have tried the card on all the PCIe ports including the x16 slot but nothing changes.

I have tried it on two guests;
XP 32bit crashes on driver install. 7 64bit crashes on boot.

Somewhat relatedly when the system dies, it takes out all network communication for wired clients in my home. No idea why.

Any ideas on how to diagnose or fix?
 
anything in vmkernel when it happens? If you have an ssh session tailing it when you start, does it manage to log anything (tail -f /var/log/vmkernel.log) before it pukes?

Also: Try 5.1 - some DP issues in 5.5.

May have to have you get a dump of the system to find out what's going on.
 
anything in vmkernel when it happens? If you have an ssh session tailing it when you start, does it manage to log anything (tail -f /var/log/vmkernel.log) before it pukes?

Also: Try 5.1 - some DP issues in 5.5.

May have to have you get a dump of the system to find out what's going on.

Nothing in the vmkernel log that indicates a problem. Last line appears then it freezes.

Code:
2013-11-19T15:22:55.034Z cpu2:57365)World: vm 57370: 1462: Starting world vmm1:Leo_Win7_Desktop of type 8
2013-11-19T15:22:55.076Z cpu0:57365)VSCSI: 3792: handle 8195(vscsi0:0):Creating Virtual Device for world 57368 (FSS handle 369144) numBlocks=165255576 (bs=512)
2013-11-19T15:22:55.076Z cpu0:57365)VSCSI: 271: handle 8195(vscsi0:0):Input values: res=0 limit=-1 bw=-1 Shares=-1
2013-11-19T15:22:59.083Z cpu0:57365)PCI: 723: Device 0000:04:00.0: restoring TV/VC Map (0x1) to offset 214
2013-11-19T15:22:59.083Z cpu0:57365)IOMMU: 1933: Device 04:00.0 placed in new domain 0x4108a48014f0.
2013-11-19T15:22:59.120Z cpu2:57368)VMMVMKCall: 224: Received INIT from world 57368
2013-11-19T15:22:59.128Z cpu1:57368)PVSCSI: 3147: scsi0: wdt=1 intrCoalescingMode=2 flags=0xf
2013-11-19T15:22:59.128Z cpu3:57370)VMMVMKCall: 224: Received INIT from world 57370
2013-11-19T15:22:59.135Z cpu1:57411)Net: 2292: connected Leo_Win7_Desktop eth0 to VM Network, portID 0x2000007
2013-11-19T15:22:59.157Z cpu0:56993)Config: 346: "SIOControlFlag2" = 0, Old Value: 1, (Status: 0x0)
2013-11-19T15:23:03.804Z cpu2:57411)PCI: 723: Device 0000:04:00.0: restoring TV/VC Map (0x1) to offset 214
2013-11-19T15:23:07.809Z cpu2:57411)PCI: 723: Device 0000:04:00.0: restoring TV/VC Map (0x1) to offset 214
2013-11-19T15:23:07.809Z cpu2:57411)IOMMU: 1933: Device 04:00.0 placed in new domain 0x4108a48014f0.
2013-11-19T15:23:08.127Z cpu2:57411)VMKPCIPassthru: 1790: BDF=04:00.0 intrType = 2 numVectors: 1
2013-11-19T15:23:08.127Z cpu2:57411)IntrVector: 288: Vector 0x35 allocated, 183 vectors available
2013-11-19T15:23:08.127Z cpu2:57411)IRQ: 540: 0x35 <pcip_04:00.0> exclusive, flags 0x0
2013-11-19T15:23:08.409Z cpu2:57368)PVSCSI: 2376: Failed to issue sync i/o : Busy (btstat=0x0 sdstat=0x8)
2013-11-19T15:23:13.742Z cpu1:57412)NetPort: 1383: enabled port 0x2000007 with mac 00:0c:29:5b:43:0a

Following suggestions from others, I also tried editing the vmx file and placing "pciPassthru0.msiEnabled = "FALSE"" in. This allowed the VM to boot and prevented any crashing. I was able to load DVB software, and scan for channels. However no channels are found, so something else must be amiss.

I will try 5.1 soon.
 
Might want to disable IRQ remapping, but I wonder if that would cause other problems (like DP not working at all - I seem to remember they're inter-related, but I'm not a kernel guru).
 
Well.

With 5.1, there is no difference. The machine still freezes.

Disabling IRQ remapping also results in freezing, no matter what the contents of msiEnabled are.

I have a nasty feeling it is the board at fault.
 
Quick update.

It appears that it is working in 5.1 U1 now! I remade the VM's from scratch (even a W7 UEFI test). msiEnabled is set to false.

But. I have been able to scan for channels and watch tv. Success! :)

Thanks lopoetve for your assistance.

GCgs2vl.jpg
 
I'm a esxi noob, but I've yet to get 5.5 working correctly on any of my machines. 5.1 U1 always installs and works without incident.
 
Quick update.

It appears that it is working in 5.1 U1 now! I remade the VM's from scratch (even a W7 UEFI test). msiEnabled is set to false.

But. I have been able to scan for channels and watch tv. Success! :)

Thanks lopoetve for your assistance.

GCgs2vl.jpg

No worries. Given the MASSIVE gray area that DP is, stuff sometimes slips through GA, and QA for hardware compatibility is up to the vendor for DP as well, so they tend to be post-release fixes... I'll make sure engineering takes a look to see if there's something we can do. I know there are open issues related to DP, so it SHOULD get fixed at some point.
 
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