Bug in VMware ESX Server Causes Client to Display Spurious Error Message When Configuring NICs on High PCI Bus Number

Impacted hardware: X8400 and X8420 Server Modules

A bug in VMware ESX 3.0.1 software causes the VI Client to display spurious error messages when performing certain network configuration operations. (CR 6500832)

Problem

There is a bug in the Host Agent of ESX Server 3.0.1 that causes the VI Client to display a spurious error pop-up when configuring networking on certain NICs. This might occur when editing the networking properties of a Sun Blade X8400 or X8420 Server Module with NICs installed in EM Slot 0 or NEM Slots 0 or 3.

When editing the properties of a virtual switch, or adding a NIC to a virtual switch, an error pop-up might be displayed. The text of the error pop-up is as follows:

An unhandled exception has occurred in your application. If you click Continue, the application will ignore this error and attempt to continue. If you click Quit, the application will be shut down immediately.

Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

When the "Network Adapters" selection is chosen on the Configuration tab, the following warning might be displayed:

Key cannot be null.

Parameter name: key

Workaround

VMware has released a patch for ESX 3.0.1 to fix this issue. To eliminate the error messages, you must install patch ESX-6050503. The patch and instructions for installing it can be found at

http://www.vmware.com/support/vi3/doc/esx-6050503-patch.html