Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

Starting VM’s problem with 3.5 U2

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As everyone probably already knows by now there’s a problem with 3.5 U2.  VMware is working on a patch as we speak. There has been a KB article released, but it seems like everyone is clicking on the same link at the same moment cause it’s hard to get a decent respond.

The error message that appears:

This product has expired. Be sure that your host machine’s date and time are set correctly.
There is a more recent version available at the VMware web site: http://www.vmware.com/info?id=4.
————–
Module License Power on failed

In short, the workaround is simple just set the date back and you will be able to power on the VM’s again, it would be smart to set the time to correct value again as soon as you started the VM. As soon as I know more about the new 3.5 U2 update I’ll let you guys know!

And a nice work around from the VMTN forum:

Find the host where a VM is located
run ‘ vmware-cmd -l ‘ to list the vms.
issue the commands:
service ntpd stop
date -s 08/01/2008
vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/vm path/vmname.vmx start
service ntpd start

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Comments

  1. Eric Sloof says

    An issue has been uncovered with ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 that causes the product license to expire on August 12. VMware engineering has isolated the root cause of this issue and will reissue the various upgrade media including the ESX 3.5 Update 2 ISO, ESXi 3.5 Update 2 ISO, ESX 3.5 Update 2 upgrade tar and zip files in the next 36 hours (by noon, August 13, PST). They will be available from the page: http://www.vmware.com/download/vi. Until then, VMware advises against upgrading to ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2.

  2. Anders Gregersen says

    The setting back time workaround only works if the guests doesn’t syncronize their time with the host.

  4. Darren Henderson says

    Yeah you need to turn off VMTools time sync, set date back on host(disable ntp), start guest VM, set host date time back(enable ntp) and then enable VMTools time sync again (if required)

    Care needs to be taken around VM DC’s and other time critcal services for obvious reasons.

    This commandline solution is probably the best route

    run ‘ vmware-cmd -l ‘ to list the vms.
    issue the commands:
    service ntpd stop
    date -s 08/01/2008
    vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/<vm path/vmname.vmx start
    service ntpd start

    This was taken from a post by maishsk on the communities thread (http://communities.vmware.com/thread/162377?tstart=0&start=105)

    (Great Blog by the way 🙂 )

  5. Carlo Costanzo says

    I have read that connecting to the HOST directly allows you to power on the VMs? I have been unable to confirm this. Has anyone else confirmed that this is a VC error exclusively?

    CARLO.

  6. Jim S says

    This is definately not a VC related error.

    You can’t power on VMs from the console either unless you stop ntpd, set the date back, start the VM, and restart ntpd (preferably as soon as you get the prompt back from the start command so that the guest OS doesn’t have time to detect the time change).