The ESXi 6.0 Update 2 has introduced a bug with VMXNET3 vNICs that causes the ESXi to crash.
When the host fails it displays a purple diagnostic screen containing the error:
Vmxnet3VMKDevRxWithLock and Vmxnet3VMKDevRx
At the moment there is no fix for this issue and the workaround is to disable hardware LRO for VMXNET3 on the ESXi host.
Workaround
To disable the hardware LRO on the ESXi host, go to host Manage > Settings > Advanced System Settings and select option Net.Vmxnet3HwLRO. Click on Edit icon to change the value.
Set Vmxnet3HwLRO value to 0 then click OK to confirm.
Net.Vmxnet3HwLRO is now set to 0.
Same action can be performed using esxcli command:
# esxcli system settings advanced set -o /Net/Vmxnet3HwLRO -i 0
Software LRO is enabled for VMXNET3 when hardware LRO is disabled.
Another possible fix is to revert the ESXi host to a previously install version.
Update 23/05/2016
VMware released a patch to fix the problem KB2144685.
Good Day. Is there a KB article regarding this as of yet? My VMWare team is interested in this as we are upgrading our 5.5 environment to 6 in the near future.
Thanks
Sean B.
The VMware KB 2144968 gives you more details about the problem.
I am in the middle of migrating from 5.1 to 6.0 u2. I work at an MSP and we have a couple of different vCenter's. One was built three weeks ago and has u2. Yesterday, two of four hosts Purple-Screened with the error of the VMXNET3 issue. We are going to make that change today.
MUCH thanks for this post!!!