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Restart the ESXi management agents

Symptoms​

  • An ESXi host shows Not Responding or Disconnected in vCenter, but its virtual machines are still running.
  • The host client is slow or fails to load.

Restarting the management agents does not power off running virtual machines.

Resolution​

1. Enable the ESXi Shell or SSH​

Use the Direct Console User Interface (DCUI): press F2, then Troubleshooting Mode Options, then enable SSH or the ESXi Shell.

2. Restart the two key agents​

/etc/init.d/hostd restart
/etc/init.d/vpxa restart
  • hostd is the host management service.
  • vpxa is the agent that talks to vCenter.

3. If the problem persists​

Restart all management services:

services.sh restart
caution

services.sh restart restarts all management services including networking components. Avoid it on hosts using vSAN or NSX unless you have confirmed it is safe for your environment.

Verify​

Re-check the host in vCenter. If it stays disconnected, right-click the host and choose Connection > Connect.

When finished, disable SSH or the ESXi Shell again.