VMWare ESX/ESXi Server CIM services are not responding

Last Modified

Wed Oct 31 15:51 GMT 2018

Description

• On occasion, the VMWare ESX/ESXi Server CIM service may stop, causing N-able N-central services to fail and be misconfigured.
• It should be noted that the services might not be stopped, but in a none responsive state. So the service is running but just not passing any new data along.

Environment

• N-able N-central 10.0+
• VMware ESX/ESXi Server 4.0+
• VMware versions 3.5 and earlier are not supported

Solution

• Refer to the The Hardware Status tab displays the error: Hardware monitoring service on this host is not responding or not available VMWare KB for the process to restart the services.
• Some partners have expressed concern with the release of ESXi 5.5 U2, and CIM services stopping, the problem should be fixed for U3 (Update 3).
• One thing you can try to get around it before you upgrade is to setup a cron job to restart the services for you. Using the examples below you add the command from the first link.
• For more information, see Gathering esxtop performance data at specific times using crontab.