From time to time you might want to check the host hardware health manually in Monitor>Hardware Health (vSphere Client) or Monitor>Hardware Status (vSphere Web Client).
For many months this functionality has been broken for ESXi 6.5 on DellEMC servers.

When opening the Sensors page, vpxd.log shows the following message:
info vpxd[7FBE59924700] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=dam-auto-generated: HardwareStatusViewMediator:dr-425:CimMonitorPropertyProvider:200359:14133-31991-ngc:70004153-e9] [VpxLRO] — BEGIN task-35318 — healthStatusSystem-34 — vim.host.HealthStatusSystem.FetchSystemEventLog
error vpxd[7FBE59924700] [Originator@6876 sub=MoHost opID=dam-auto-generated: HardwareStatusViewMediator:dr-425:CimMonitorPropertyProvider:200359:14133-31991-ngc:70004153-e9] No Content-Length header, WSMan IPMI SEL operation failed
info vpxd[7FBE59924700] [Originator@6876 sub=MoHost opID=dam-auto-generated: HardwareStatusViewMediator:dr-425:CimMonitorPropertyProvider:200359:14133-31991-ngc:70004153-e9] WSMan Msg size 59: part:401 Unauthorized
–> WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm=”OPENWSMAN”)l▒\x7f
warning vpxd[7FBE59924700] [Originator@6876 sub=Default opID=dam-auto-generated: HardwareStatusViewMediator:dr-425:CimMonitorPropertyProvider:200359:14133-31991-ngc:70004153-e9] Closing Response processing in unexpected state: 3
info vpxd[7FBE59924700] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=dam-auto-generated: HardwareStatusViewMediator:dr-425:CimMonitorPropertyProvider:200359:14133-31991-ngc:70004153-e9] [VpxLRO] — FINISH task-35318
info vpxd[7FBE59924700] [Originator@6876 sub=Default opID=dam-auto-generated: HardwareStatusViewMediator:dr-425:CimMonitorPropertyProvider:200359:14133-31991-ngc:70004153-e9] [VpxLRO] — ERROR task-35318 — healthStatusSystem-34 — vim.host.HealthStatusSystem.FetchSystemEventLog: vmodl.fault.SystemError:
–> Result:
–> (vmodl.fault.SystemError) {
–> faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
–> faultMessage = <unset>,
–> reason = “Retrieve IPMI SEL request to host failed”
–> msg = “”
–> }
–> Args:
–>
Many people were pointing to vpxa.cfg (here and here) as a source of the error:
<log>
<level>verbose</level>
<maxFileNum>10</maxFileNum>
<maxFileSize>1048576</maxFileSize>
<memoryLevel>verbose</memoryLevel>
<outputToConsole>false</outputToConsole>
<outputToFiles>false</outputToFiles>
<outputToSyslog>true</outputToSyslog>
<syslog>
<facility>local4</facility>
<ident>Vpxa</ident>
<logHeaderFile>/var/run/vmware/vpxaLogHeader.txt</logHeaderFile>
</syslog>
</log>
It was not the end of the world, and I didn’t want to edit default log levels manually. So the issue was ignored for a while.
To my great surprise, it all went back to normal after updating hypervisor to the latest version using Dell EMC customised VMware ESXi 6.5 U1 A10 image.
Now, we can see multiple events in vpxd.log generated by VpxLRO:
info vpxd[7FBE58B08700] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=combined(dam-auto-generated: ObjectTabbedViewMediator:dr-519,dam-auto-generated: ObjectPropertyFilter:dr-521):01-e6] [VpxLRO] — BEGIN lro-490638 — ResourceModel — cis.data.provider.ResourceModel.query
info vpxd[7FBE58B08700] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=combined(dam-auto-generated: ObjectTabbedViewMediator:dr-519,dam-auto-generated: ObjectPropertyFilter:dr-521):01-e6] [VpxLRO] — FINISH lro-490638
info vpxd[7FBE58B08700] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=combined(dam-auto-generated: ObjectPropertyFilter:dr-529,dam-auto-generated: ObjectPropertyFilter:dr-533):01-86] [VpxLRO] — BEGIN lro-490639 — ResourceModel — cis.data.provider.ResourceModel.query
info vpxd[7FBE58B08700] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=combined(dam-auto-generated: ObjectPropertyFilter:dr-529,dam-auto-generated: ObjectPropertyFilter:dr-533):01-86] [VpxLRO] — FINISH lro-490639
info vpxd[7FBE5B45A700] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=dam-auto-generated: ObjectPropertyFilter:dr-529:AssociationHostSystemAdapter:200359:14388-32550-ngc:70004210-ce] [VpxLRO] — BEGIN lro-490640 — HostProfileManager — vim.profile.ProfileManager.findAssociatedProfile
info vpxd[7FBE5B45A700] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=dam-auto-generated: ObjectPropertyFilter:dr-529:AssociationHostSystemAdapter:200359:14388-32550-ngc:70004210-ce] [VpxLRO] — FINISH lro-490640
info vpxd[7FBE5A236700] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=dam-auto-generated: RelatedItemsManager:dr-535:01-78] [VpxLRO] — BEGIN lro-490641 — ResourceModel — cis.data.provider.ResourceModel.query
info vpxd[7FBE5A236700] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=dam-auto-generated: RelatedItemsManager:dr-535:01-78] [VpxLRO] — FINISH lro-490641
2018-04-12T14:02:41.702+08:00 info vpxd[7FBE5A236700] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=dam-auto-generated: HardwareStatusViewMediator:dr-545:01-d9] [VpxLRO] — BEGIN lro-490642 — ResourceModel — cis.data.provider.ResourceModel.query
info vpxd[7FBE5A236700] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=dam-auto-generated: HardwareStatusViewMediator:dr-545:01-d9] [VpxLRO] — FINISH lro-490642
info vpxd[7FBE5ACCB700] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=urn:vmomi:HostSystem:host-28:9a78adfb-4c75-4b84-8d9a-65ab2cc71e51.properties:01-c1] [VpxLRO] — BEGIN lro-490643 — ResourceModel — cis.data.provider.ResourceModel.query
info vpxd[7FBE5ACCB700] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=urn:vmomi:HostSystem:host-28:9a78adfb-4c75-4b84-8d9a-65ab2cc71e51.properties:01-c1] [VpxLRO] — FINISH lro-490643
info vpxd[7FBE5A53C700] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=dam-auto-generated: HardwareStatusViewMediator:dr-545:CimMonitorPropertyProvider:200359:14395-32555-ngc:70004212-2b] [VpxLRO] — BEGIN task-35322 — healthStatusSystem-28 — vim.host.HealthStatusSystem.FetchSystemEventLog
info vpxd[7FBE5A53C700] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=dam-auto-generated: HardwareStatusViewMediator:dr-545:CimMonitorPropertyProvider:200359:14395-32555-ngc:70004212-2b] [VpxLRO] — FINISH task-35322
As a result, the ‘Refresh hardware IPMI System Event Log’ task completes successfully.
