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VMWare Server: 511 vmware-serverd service is not running.

At some point the VMWare Server  host run out of diskspace on which the virtual guest machines were stored. Windows started to complain about low disk space and only 32KB was left. I tried to open VMWare Server console and I got the error message below "511 vmware-serverd service is not running." All virtual machines were running except the one which consumed the remaining diskspace of the physical SAS drives.

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To resolve this issue I shutdown one of the virtual machines with a RDP session and moved the directory to another VMWare Server host; next step I did I tried to bring other virtual machines down by a RDP session and at some point I was left with two other virtual machines which both were not accessible by RDP nor by SSH for the linux one.

I opened Task Manager and located the remaining processes for the virtual machines.

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vmware-vmx.exe is individual process for each virtual machine. Two were left and I stopped both vmware-vmx.exe processes. Open Services.msc console and restart the "VMware Registration Service" service.

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After the service was restarted the initial process of starting the virtual machines started and all virtual machines were up and running. This is how I resolved the problem with VMWare Server, but it brings me back to the root cause of why this happened and one of the import things is to really think how you are going to seize your virtual machines and their disk space. I am going to implement thresholds and notifications with CactiEZ appliance soon and hopefully something which can help you also.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 at 1:25 pm and is filed under VMWare. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

22 Responses to “VMWare Server: 511 vmware-serverd service is not running.”

  1. ram says:
    April 18, 2008 at 7:44 am

    It’s a very good post.
    Thanks for the help.
    Ram

  2. Mike D says:
    April 22, 2008 at 9:28 pm

    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\VMAuthdService]
    “DependOnService”=hex(7):76,00,6d,00,78,00,38,00,36,00,00,00,77,00,6d,00,69,00,00,00,00,00

    This is the fix, copy the above to a file with a .reg extension and run it. It will add a dependency to the VMWare Authentication service

  3. Claudio Laurita says:
    April 27, 2008 at 11:26 am

    Thanks a lot to Mike D.
    I had a similar problem running VMware server 1.05 on a 2kpro.
    The missing wmi dependency caused a fault in Auth service start that caused a fault in registration service start.
    With his fix, everything works fine.

    Claudio Laurita

  4. yannis says:
    May 2, 2008 at 10:42 am

    I have no VMware Registration Service. What I have to do?

  5. ab says:
    May 3, 2008 at 4:08 pm

    Very helpful post. Thank you

  6. 511 vmware-serverd service is not running says:
    July 8, 2008 at 9:16 am

    [...] here is a useful link on this issue : http://www.networknet.nl/apps/wp/archives/385 [...]

  7. mobo cray says:
    July 23, 2008 at 1:08 am

    thanks a lot..
    XD

  8. -RAM- says:
    August 10, 2008 at 3:42 am

    Thanks….

  9. reN says:
    August 18, 2008 at 1:00 pm

    Thank you! this post help me to solve problem :)

  10. Arun.PC says:
    August 25, 2008 at 12:10 pm

    Fantastic! Was stuck with this error and following your article got it working. Keep writing good solutions like these.

    Thanks,
    Arun.P.C
    http://www.arunpc.com

  11. Homer says:
    September 25, 2008 at 10:55 am

    Thank you.
    Your post helped me resolve my problem

  12. sud says:
    September 26, 2008 at 5:17 pm

    thanks a lot..very helpful

  13. raf says:
    September 28, 2008 at 11:24 am

    Thank you!!!!
    Good post

  14. sphinxradycal says:
    October 1, 2008 at 1:51 pm

    thank u for help !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  15. Benz says:
    October 13, 2008 at 5:30 pm

    thanks you, very helpful post!

  16. Boss says:
    December 9, 2008 at 5:50 pm

    Very useful Info. Thanks a lot!

  17. Pavel N says:
    March 21, 2009 at 11:47 pm

    Make D, thanks a lot!

  18. angie says:
    May 7, 2009 at 5:03 pm

    Thanks Ivan! This post addressed my problem.

  19. abo says:
    May 27, 2009 at 2:19 pm

    Hi all,

    Thanks for this suggested fixe but it does not fixe my issue.
    I applyied this fixe provide by Mike but no success.

    I uninstalled VmWare then reinstalled it: issue still present.

    Any ide is very welcome.

    Thanks,

  20. torteflo says:
    June 12, 2009 at 12:23 pm

    Hi abo,

    did you upgrade your vmware server version?
    what is your current one?

  21. armando says:
    October 2, 2009 at 9:08 am

    very good post, thanks!

  22. sky86 says:
    January 5, 2010 at 5:36 pm

    I use XP os
    I execute this command :
    C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Server\vmserverdWin32.exe
    than i solve this problem!

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