Esxi 5.1 pci passthrough broken

[HellMind]

I got a purple screen when I start up a vm with a pci device

With Esxi5 was working fine.

I tested it with 2 vm on different hosts ( but same hardware)

i7 2600 32gb

mb: dq67sw

What can I try

[srwsol]

Does anyone have time to check and see what effect the latest patch has on our problem?  It will be a couple weeks before I can test with my configuration again.

A week or so ago I submitted some feedback on the kb article mentioned above that describes our problem.  I expressed severe disappointment that they would silently remove a capability that worked in a previous version and leave their customers that used that capability hanging, and said I thought that was very poor customer service.  I got a response, which was a surprise, but it wasn't very useful.  It read:

"Thank you for the feedback on KB article 2044963.  While I understand your frustration, there is no official time line for a resolution for this.  Let me recommend that you subscribe to the document, so when it is updated you can be notified and that is the best way to find out when any status changes."

Message was edited by: srwsol

[Mario1976]

Hello srwsol,

I just finished applying the latest ESX-Patches (5.0 were needed and 5.1 U1) and Firmware-Updates on all my hosts and it's like always, when there's just one cluster left, vmware releases a new update 😉

So I disabled UpdateManager to not pull the new update until I'm finished getting all my hosts on the same level.

Today I reenabled it and applied the update to the test-server I also used for all other tests, but unfortunately nothing (except the build number 1117900) has changed since ESX 5.1 Update 1, regarding our problem. The USB-Hostcontroller vanished at the first reboot.

So we'll still have to wait and hope...

Best Regards

Mario

[rossbeavis]

I'm a long time VMware (ESX) user, but new to the forums. I just picked up this thread yesterday when I tried to install a PCIe USB 3 card (NEC chipset) for passthrough to a VM. On 5.1 build 799733, it didn't work (add card for passthrough, reboot, and it's disappeared from the list of passthrough devices), and so I upgraded to the latest build to discover I'd skipped the version that works! D'oh!

I've never had 5.0 on this host, nor the build number of 5.1 that works, but can I perform an 'upgrade' on my host to 'upgrade' it to a working build, either the latest 5.0, or 5.1 build 102xxxx?

I, like many others here, need to get this working for efficient swapping of USB 3 disks for backup purposes. I don't want the hassle of mounting/unmounting/adding/readding USB devices through the VM every week to swap my backup targets over.

[Mario1976]

Hello and welcome to the communities,

when the problem occured for the first time I also tried to run an installation with an older version as upgrade, but for me it didn't work. I had to completely reinstall the host.

But for you chances might be good that you could at least go back to build 799733, when you select this at the boot prompt. After that you could only apply the update, that get's you to the "somehow" working build. But if I were in your shoes and you want to really rely on the config, then I'd recommend to install ESXi 5.0.

[rossbeavis]

Thanks for the prompt reply!

I was worried that might be the only fix. Yes, I am going to be relying on this for reliable backups (admittedly it's only a home environment), so it sounds like that might be the only option. Do you know if there's any easy way to backup and restore config of an individual host (I'm thinking specifically of network configs here)? It doesn't take much to configure from scratch, but thought I'd ask since I was here, and see if I could save myself the pain!

[yeehawjared]

FYI,

don't apply patch ESXi510-201305001, build 1117900, released on 05/22/2013.  PCI pass through is totally broken and vanishes, and you can't assign use the hacky PCI passthrough trick like you could on earlier 5.1.0 versions.

[RoadRunnr]

yeehawjared wrote:

FYI,

don't apply patch ESXi510-201305001, build 1117900, released on 05/22/2013.  PCI pass through is totally broken and vanishes, and you can't assign use the hacky PCI passthrough trick like you could on earlier 5.1.0 versions.

Do you mean the USB controller pass-through or any PCI device pass-through? I'm only asking because pass-through of normal PCI devices used to work in the latest ESXi 5.1 release without any tricks.

[yeehawjared]

Sorry, USB controller pass-through.

[Mario1976]

Hello yeehawjared,

I already posted my experience with build 1117900 on 05/24/2013 to this thread.

If you have a support contract with vmware, please also open a call regarding this issue to maybe push the priority for a solution to this problem.

[marcelvaneijkel]

Same problem here.

I noticed that lsusb en lspci show up the devices just fine.

But in the sphere gui the usb host controller seem te be filtered out.

I have managed to add the usb host controller for pci passthrough (some seemed to show up under a different name)

but after reboot configuration gone.

everything was working in esxi 5.0!

in my opinion the list supported list of usb devices is unbelievable short.

I think VMware really made a mistake by dropping the use case for use controller host passtrhough

I will need to revert back to v5.0 to...

[jgkurz]

yeehawjared wrote:

FYI,

don't apply patch ESXi510-201305001, build 1117900, released on 05/22/2013.  PCI pass through is totally broken and vanishes, and you can't assign use the hacky PCI passthrough trick like you could on earlier 5.1.0 versions.

Can you advise what version of 5.1 did allow the USB PCI passthough?

[Bembel]

Vielen Dank für Ihre E-mail.

Bis einschließlich Freitag, den 28. Juni, bin ich nicht im Büro und nur sporadisch per E-mail oder Telefon erreichbar.

Ab dem 1. Juli bin ich wieder im Büro erreichbar.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen,

Martin Sitte

Thank you for your e-mail.

I will not be in the office until June 28th and will not be responding to e-mails in time.

On Juli 1st I will be back in the office again.

Best regards,

Martin Sitte

[Monchi]

any news on this topic?

Is there anyway to get the passthrough of my usb host controller done?

or do i have to downgrade to ESXi 5.0? If so which is the last known working version?

[gsortais]

Bonjour,

je serai absent jusqu'au 05/08/2013

En cas d'urgence merci de joindre Vincent Laurent<vincent.laurent@thalesgroup.com>

cordialement

G. Sortais

[Bembel]

Vielen Dank für Ihre E-mail.

Bis einschließlich Freitag, den 02. August, bin ich nicht im Büro und nur sporadisch per E-mail oder Telefon erreichbar.

Ab dem 5. August bin ich wieder im Büro erreichbar.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen,

Martin Sitte

Thank you for your e-mail.

I will not be in the office until August 2nd and will not be responding to e-mails in time.

On August 5th I will be back in the office again.

Best regards,

Martin Sitte

[rossbeavis]

I don't have any news, but I can tell you that I had to downgrade (read: wipe, reinstall and reconfigure) to 5.0 to get my USB3 PCIe controller passed through. I'm on the latest build, 914586, 5.0.0 U2, released Dec 2012.

Edit: Furthermore, there hasn't been a new release of 5.1 since April this year, so there's no change in the level of functionality in 5.1.

[Monchi]

rossbeavis

thx for the info!

Anyone knows if this paticular build of free version of the hypervisor is still availible for download? When I try the files from the download section I only get the messages that my licens doesnt allow me to download this file.

[ScreamingSilenc]

Have anyone tried Patch ESXi510-201212401-BG, it seem to be resolved in 5.1.

[rossbeavis]

Mustafa - I think that's the one where you have to re-add the passthru device after every reboot of the host. I wouldn't call this resolved - I think it's more a fluke of this build that the feature is semi-functional, rather than being by design.

[Mario1976]

I just tested the new patches from 07/25/2013 ESXi510-201307101-SG ESXi 5.1.0 build 1157734.

Unforunately still no change in behaviour. The Hostcontroller vanished after the mandatory reboot after adding it to the passthrough devices.

With ESXi 5.0 I'm on build 1117897 (from 05/15/2013, latest build so far) and there it's still working.