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Knowledge Base

[Bulk Archived] Understanding a "Spin count exceeded" purple diagnostic screen (1020105)

Last Updated: 3/20/2024Categories: Total Views: 29129Language:
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Symptoms

An ESX host may present a purple diagnostic screen with text similar to the following:

Spin count exceeded

possible deadlock

If you encounter a purple diagnostic screen that does not match the symptoms above, see Interpreting an ESX host purple diagnostic screen(1004250).

Purpose

This article provides information about a purple diagnostic screen that contains the messages Spin count exceeded and possible deadlock.

Resolution

Overview

VMware ESX has cooperating processes that affect each other because they share common resources such as variables, tables, and files. There are various mechanisms in place that ensure cooperating processes with shared resources do not negatively impact each other. This type of mechanism is often referred to as a mutex.

These terms help explain why a VMware ESX host may report one of these errors:

Critical Section - A critical section is a portion of the programming code that makes use of a resource that may be shared by multiple cooperating processes.

Mutex - A mutex is a mechanism that protects the critical section of the code based specific criteria. A semaphore is one form of mutex.

Spinlock - A spinlock is the process in which a thread of a process polls the mutex to get a lock prior to entering the critical section of code. This may also be referred to as a busy wait.

The Purple Screen

A VMware ESX host may report a Spin count exceeded and possible deadlock in a purple diagnostic screen when a thread is attempting to execute in the critical section of code. Since it was trying to enter the critical section, the thread needed to poll a mutex for a lock prior to executing the code by conducting a spinlock operation. The thread continues to poll the mutex during the spinlock operation, but there is a certain limit of how many times it polls the mutex.

When the maximum number of polls is reached, the VMware ESX host reports a purple diagnostic screen with the following error:

VMware ESX Server [Releasebuild-207095]
Spin count exceeded (iplLock) - possible deadlock
cr2=0xb6ea3fff cr3=0x22401000 cr4=0x6f0
frame=0x14028d4 ip=0x626265
es=0xffffffff ds=0xffffffff fs=0xffffffff gs=0xffffffff
eax=0xffffffff ebx=0xffffffff ecx=0xffffffff edx=0xffffffff
ebp=0x1402a3c esi=0xffffffff edi=0xffffffff err=-1 eflags=0xffffffff
*0:1024/console 1:1094/vmm0:M100 2:1086/vmware-vm 3:1118/mks:dby-d
4:1109/vmm0:M102 5:1116/vmm0:dby- 6:1096/mks:M1000 7:1082/vmm0:M100
@BlueScreen: Spin count exceeded (iplLock) - possible deadlock
0x1402a3c:[0x626265]Panic+0x10 stack: 0x83821c, 0x2970608, 0x4
0x1402a90:[0x634ff3]SP_WaitLock+0x1ca stack: 0x2970600, 0x1402ab8, 0x9d75ef
0x1402a9c:[0x9b1386]cosShadow+0x385 stack: 0x0, 0x2865a40, 0x2865a40
0x1402ab8:[0x9d75ef]cosShadow+0x265ee stack: 0x0, 0xa8ae9be8, 0x53ac1
0x1402af0:[0x63b947]TimerBHHandlerLoop+0x18e stack: 0x1456c98, 0x0, 0x148a798
0x1402b30:[0x63e7b1]Timer_BHHandler+0xb8 stack: 0x0, 0xdf, 0x0
0x1402b88:[0x6188c5]BH_Check+0x84 stack: 0x1, 0x1402bac, 0x1754941
0x1402bac:[0x620126]IDT_HandleInterrupt+0x85 stack: 0x1402bf8, 0x0, 0x37638000
0x1402bc0:[0x62024d]IDT_IntrHandler+0x4c stack: 0x1402bf8, 0x4028, 0x4028
0x1402c70:[0x693b7c]CommonIntr+0xb stack: 0x14897a0, 0x0, 0x1402de0
0x1402e1c:[0x763234]CpuSchedDispatch+0x487 stack: 0x2391f00, 0x14897a0, 0x0
0x1402e88:[0x765a36]CpuSchedDoWaitDirectedYield+0x351 stack: 0x0, 0x1f57f60, 0x0
0x1402ea4:[0x765b66]CpuSched_WaitIRQ+0x31 stack: 0xfedcba90, 0x6, 0x1f57f60
0x1402ec4:[0x692893]VMNIXVMKSyscall_Idle+0xe2 stack: 0x1402f6c, 0x6924e3, 0x0
0x1402ecc:[0x687538]VMNIXVMKSyscallUnpackIdle+0x7 stack: 0x0, 0x0, 0x0
0x1402f6c:[0x6924e3]HostSyscall+0xf6 stack: 0x1402fbc, 0xc03dbf98, 0x1c
0x1402fe8:[0x69187f]HostVMKEntry+0xce stack: 0x0, 0x0, 0x0
VMK uptime: 6:09:43:15.399 TSC: 1472031313725856
Starting coredump to disk Starting coredump to disk Dumping using slot 1 of 1... using slot 1 of 1... log

This error occurs when the spinlock count is exceeded. It does not indicate what was holding the mutex lock. Determining the root cause usually involves finding the process or thread that was holding the mutex and investigating why it was held so long.

If you experience a purple diagnostic screen that contains the messages Spin count exceeded and possible deadlock, collect diagnostic information from the VMware ESX host and submit a support request. For more information, see Collecting Diagnostic Information for VMware Products (1008524) and How to Submit a Support Request.

Related Information

If you have a "Spin count exceeded" purple diagnostic screen that exactly matches the symptoms outlined in one of the following articles, please follow the applicable directions:

VMware ESXi 4.0, Patch ESXi400-201003401-BG: Updates Firmware (1019497)

Note: If the error has not been documented within the knowledge base, collect diagnostic information from the ESX host and submit a support request. For more information, see Collecting Diagnostic Information for VMware Products (1008524) and How to Submit a Support Request.

For more information about these programming terms and functions, see the Intel articles Using Locks Effectively in Parallel Programming or Effective Implementation of Locks Using Spin Locks.

Note: The preceding links were available as of April 6, 2010. If you find the links to be broken, provide feedback on the article and a VMware employee will update the article as necessary.

了解“转数已超出”紫色诊断屏幕（紫屏）

Detectable by VMware SkylineTM

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End Of General Availability of the Free vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi 7.x and 8.x) (2107518)

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VMware への診断情報のアップロード (2079025)

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