Recently, I was seeing errors when using Virtual Center’s Update Manager feature to update an ESX server to v3.5 Update 4. The issue wasn’t with the update itself, but in how long it was taking the remediation tasks to run. It seems that by default, a task will timeout if it doesn’t complete within 15 minutes. In my case, I was seeing timeout errors with an update package which did not complete in this time.

To fix this, you’ll need to adjust the timeout value on the ESX host and in Virtual Center.

[i:19znvoaa]Here’s how:

[/i:19znvoaa][b:19znvoaa][u:19znvoaa]ESX server modifications[/u:19znvoaa][/b:19znvoaa]
[list=1:19znvoaa]
[*:19znvoaa]Connect to the ESX host (I use FastSCP for this).[/*:m:19znvoaa]
[*:19znvoaa]Navigate to the file [b:19znvoaa]/etc/opt/vmware/vpxa/vpxa.cfg [/b:19znvoaa]and open it for editing.[/*:m:19znvoaa]
[*:19znvoaa]Somewhere before the last bit of code (“</config>”), insert the following code:[/*:m:19znvoaa][/list:o:19znvoaa] [code:19znvoaa]
<task>
<timeout>9000000</timeout>
</task>
<vmomi>
<soapStubAdapter>
<blockingTimeoutSeconds>9000000</blockingTimeoutSeconds>
</soapStubAdapter>
</vmomi>[/code:19znvoaa]

[b:19znvoaa][u:19znvoaa]Virtual Center server modifications[/u:19znvoaa][/b:19znvoaa]
[list=1:19znvoaa]
[*:19znvoaa]Connect to the Virtual Center server.[/*:m:19znvoaa]
[*:19znvoaa]Using an editor such as Wordpad, edit the file [b:19znvoaa]c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\vpxd.cfg[/b:19znvoaa].[/*:m:19znvoaa]
[*:19znvoaa]Somewhere before the last bit of code (“</config>”), insert the following code:[/*:m:19znvoaa][/list:o:19znvoaa] [code:19znvoaa]
<task>
<timeout>9000000</timeout>
</task>
<vmomi>
<soapStubAdapter>
<blockingTimeoutSeconds>9000000</blockingTimeoutSeconds>
</soapStubAdapter>
</vmomi>[/code:19znvoaa]

Now, you’ll need to restart the vpxa service. To do this, connect to the ESX console and run this command:
[code:19znvoaa]service vmware-vpxa restart[/code:19znvoaa]

You should now be able to complete those longer tasks without any timeouts.