UCS C240 M3 losing access to flexflash with timeout error

[fenilantony]

As per our health check, we found that our UCS server (UCSC-C240-M3S) flexflash is generating warning message “Unable to communicate with flexible Flash Controller: Operation ffCardsGet,status ERROR_TIMEOUT”.

As per below Cisco's Workaround we already upgraded the firmware of this server [now its 1.5(4e)] and fixed the problem.

Today Morning again we faced the same issue and issue get resolved after a reboot of CIMC.

Please help us for a permanent workaround.

Please find below link for the Cisco’s bug fix regarding this issue
https://tools.cisco.com/bugsearch/bug/CSCuh33982

C-series losing access to flexflash/SD card with timeout error
CSCuh33982

[David Alpizar]

Hi

This error message is been investigated and you are right about the software defect info.

The workaround is basically to perform the upgrade or to reboot the CIMC however I would like to know:

How many flex flash are installed in the server?

Did you perform the reset of the flexflash from the CLI?

In case you need the commands, please check the details here:

http://tools.cisco.com/squish/7F51df

UCS-C200M2# scope cimc

UCS-C200M2#reboot

Hope this helps!

- David

[fenilantony]

1. We have only one flex flash
2. No, we done  reset from GUI only, tomorrow I will do it from CLI also and I will let u know the updates.

[David Alpizar]

Cool! let us know about the result

[fenilantony]

Today we got same problem in second server also and issue get resolved after a reboot of CIMC from CLI.

• Server-1- We done Reboot CIMC from GUI and
• Server-2-We done Reboot CIMC from CLI

We will continue monitoring  and I will let u know the updates.

[fenilantony]

We performed below Workaround and fixed this issue:

1. Reboot CIMC from CLI

ssh into the management ip address of CIMC and run the below commands.
                         Scope cimc
                         Reboot

2. Now CIMC shows the controller is healthy.

But ESXi still shows the same error (/Bootbank cannot be found at the path /bootbank)

then ssh into the ESXi server and restart the service by using the below command

Services.sh restart (To restart all management agents on the host)

( this will not affect your VM running on it but this will disconnect the ESXi server and connect it back automatically when the service comes up).

Any comments?

[fenilantony]

Now CIMC is working perfectly.But still ESXi is generating "bootbank cannot be found at path '/bootbank".

so we decided move the ESXi out of Flexflash to dedicated Hard disks in RAID-1.