New KB: How to troubleshoot the "Not Responding" host status in SCVMM 2008 and in SCVMM 2008 R2
Published Feb 15 2019 06:40 AM 1,672 Views
First published on TECHNET on May 16, 2011

Here’s another new System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Knowledge Base article we published this morning. This one tells you how to troubleshoot the "Not Responding" host status in System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2:


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This article covers how to troubleshoot the "Not Responding" host status that appears in the Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) Administrator Console. The "Not Responding" host status indicates that the VMM server cannot communicate with the host. If this communication is interrupted, even intermittently, you can expect the host status to change in the VMM Administrator Console.


Common errors that are logged in the VMM Administrator Console (Jobs view) when a Host status is Not Responding:


Error (2911)
Insufficient resources are available to complete this operation on the server . domainname .com server.
(Not enough storage is available to complete this operation (0x8007000E))


Error (2912)
An internal error has occurred trying to contact an agent on the server.domainname.com server.
(No more threads can be created in the system (0x800700A4))


Error (2916)
VMM is unable to complete the request. The connection to the agent server.domainname.com was lost.
(Unknown error (0x80338012))


Error (2915)
The WS-Management Service cannot process the request. Object not found on the server.domainname.com server.
(Unknown error (0x80041002))


Warning (13926)
Host cluster clustername.domainname.com was not fully refreshed because not all of the nodes could be contacted. Highly available storage and virtual network information reported for this cluster might be inaccurate.


More Information
Step 1: Use Virtual Machine Manager Configuration Analyzer

The Virtual Machine Manager Configuration Analyzer is a diagnostic tool that you can use to evaluate important configuration settings for computers that either are serving or might serve VMM roles or other VMM functions. The Virtual Machine Manager Configuration Analyzer does the following:



  • Scans the hardware and software configurations of the computers that you specify

  • Evaluates these configurations against a set of predefined rules

  • Displays error messages and warnings for any configurations that are not optimal for the VMM role or other VMM functions that you have specified for the computer


System Requirements:


Before you install the Virtual Machine Manager Configuration Analyzer, you must download and install the 64-bit version of Microsoft Baseline Configuration Analyzer. To download the MBCASetup64.msi file, visit the following Microsoft Web site:


http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=97952


Note The system requirements for Microsoft Baseline Configuration Analyzer indicate that only Windows Server 2003 is supported. However, the Virtual Machine Manager Configuration Analyzer and Microsoft Baseline Configuration Analyzer have been tested and are supported on 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2.


You must install and run the Virtual Machine Manager Configuration Analyzer on the computer that either currently is or will become your VMM server. To review the system requirements for the VMM server, visit the following Microsoft Web site:


http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=133516


To download the Virtual Machine Manager Configuration Analyzer, visit the following Microsoft Web site:


http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=02d83950-c03d-454e-803b-96d1c1d5be24&d...


Step 2: Check recommended hotfixes

On all servers that host a VMM or Hyper-V role, verify the recommended hotfixes are installed:
2397711 Recommended hotfixes for System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2
962941 Recommended hotfixes for System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008


Step 3: Check the Svchost.exe process of the Windows Remote Management service

Virtual Machine Manager depends very much on the Windows Remote Management service for underlying communication. Therefore, the "Not Responding" status is very likely to occur because of an error in the underlying Windows Remote Management communication between the VMM server and the host computer. In this case, the status is "OK" shortly after you restart the host computer, however the status changes to "Not Responding" after 3 to 4 hours and jobs on the VMM server fail with errors like the example below:


Error (2927)
A Hardware Management error has occurred trying to contact server server.contoso.com.
(Unknown error (0x803381a6))


Recommended Action
Check that WinRM is installed and running on server server.contoso.com. For more information use the command "winrm helpmsg hresult".


Additionally, if you stop the Windows Remote Management service at a command prompt, it takes much longer than usual to be completed. Sometimes, it can take up to five minutes to stop.


This problem can occur if the shared Svchost.exe process that hosts the Windows Remote Management service is backed up.


To resolve this problem, configure the Windows Remote Management service to run in a separate Svchost.exe process. To do this, open an elevated command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER.


Note Make sure that you type the command exactly as it appears here. Notice the space after the "=" symbol. c:\>sc config winrm type= own


If the command is completed successfully, you see the following output: [SC] ChangeServiceConfig SUCCESS


Step 4: Increase the default value for the WinRM timeout

1. On each server open an elevated command prompt to perform the following steps.


2. Windows 2008R2 AND Windows 2008 SP2 machines. Use the following command to increase the default value for WinRM timeout.


winrm set winrm/config @{MaxTimeoutms = "1800000"}

3. Windows 2008R2 AND Windows 2008 SP2 machines. (Windows 2008 R2 servers may report not needing this step)


winrm set winrm/config/Service @{MaxConcurrentOperations="200"}

4. Windows 2008R2 AND Windows 2008 SP2 machines. (Windows 2008 SP2 servers may report not needing this step)


winrm set winrm/config/Service @{MaxConcurrentOperationsPerUser="400"}

5. Windows 2008R2 AND Windows 2008 SP2 machines:


net stop winrm
net start winrm
net start vmmagent


Step 5: Check the VMM server computer account

This problem also occurs because the VMM server computer account is removed from the local Administrators group on the host computer. This setting may be caused by the "Restrictive Groups" Group Policy setting.


For more information about this cause, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 969164 Virtual Server or Hyper-V host may have a status of "Not Responding" or "Needs Attention" due to Restricted Groups group policy setting


To resolve this problem, move the VMM server and host computers to a new organizational unit (OU) that blocks inheritance of all Group Policy objects.


Step 6: Disable TCP Offloading

You must disable TCP Offloading in Windows, in the registry, and in any network adapter teaming management software that is being used. You must check all these locations to make sure that TCP Offloading is completely disabled. This operation must be performed on both the VMM server and the host computer.


Locate all network adapters in the registry under the following subkey:


HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}


There are additional subkeys under this subkey that are named with four digits, starting with "0000." Locate the subkeys that show the physical network adapter names on the details pane. Find the "DriverDesc" value on the details pane. This value should contain the name of a network adapter, such as "HP NC360T PCIe Gigabit Server Adapter." For each of these subkeys, make the following changes:


Disable all vendor-specific offloading. Set values for any entries that include the word "Offload" to "0" (disabled). For example, these entries include the following:



To disable TCP Offloading in Windows, use the following registry entry for task offloading for the TCP/IP protocol: Subkey:


HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\TCPIP\Parameters


Entry: DisableTaskOffload
Type: REG_DWORDYou can set this registry entry to 1 to disable all task-offloading from the TCP/IP transport.


Many vendors have some forms of offloading capabilities built into their teaming management software. Such offloading can appear in many forms and is usually vendor-specific.


For more information about offloading, visit the following Microsoft Developer Network Web site: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa938424.aspx


Step 7: Check for other causes

Some other causes that are potential causes of this problem include the following:



  • The VMM agent is not running.

  • Some antivirus software is scanning ports or protocols.


VMM accounts membership

You can put the VMM accounts into the appropriate groups according to the following.
VMM server machine account:



  • The Administrators group on the VMM server and on all host computers

  • The Virtual Machine Manager Servers local group on the VMM server


The account for actions in VMM:



  • The Local Administrators group on the VMM server and on all host computers


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The information above was published today in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article written by Mike Briggs:


KB976640 - How to troubleshoot the "Not Responding" host status in SCVMM 2008 and in SCVMM 2008...


J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer


The App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/
The WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/
The SCMDM Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mdm/
The ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/
The SCOM 2007 Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/operationsmgr/
The SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/
The MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/
The DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/
The OOB Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/oob/
The Opalis Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/opalis
The Service Manager Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager
The AVIcode Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/avicode
The System Center Essentials Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials
The Server App-V Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv



Version history
Last update:
‎Mar 11 2019 08:46 AM
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