Page Fault Exception 14 on VMware ESXi, what causes it and how to fix

By Sai Kiran Pandrala · Last verified: 2026-05-31 · Source: official OS documentation, distro forums (Ubuntu Discourse, Fedora Discussion, Arch BBS, Reddit r/linux, ServerFault, Unix StackExchange), community Q&A

Engineers running VMware ESXi 8.0 (Broadcom) hit Page Fault Exception 14 on VMware ESXi, what causes it and how to fix often enough that there is a stable fix pattern. This page captures it in the order a Linux on-call would run it during a real incident.

What page fault exception 14 on vmware esxi, what causes it and how to fix actually involves on VMware ESXi 8.0 (Broadcom)

The Page Fault Exception 14 error on VMware ESXi typically surfaces with the message "Page Fault Exception (Exception 14)". The exact code or signature line is what you grep for in the distro forum, ServerFault, or Unix StackExchange, not the human-readable sentence next to it.

On VMware ESXi this most often comes from one of three causes: a configuration file or unit override that drifted, a missing package or kernel module, or a resource limit (disk, RAM, file handles, inodes). The fix path differs by which.

The rest of this page is the structured fix path. Start with diagnose, then remediation, then the automation options so you do not have to do this by hand the next time it surfaces. Verify and safety sections at the end are the discipline that keeps the fix from regressing in production.

Diagnose first, fix second

Start by capturing the exact error string verbatim. Many UIs and installers truncate messages in popups, but the system log keeps the full record. Use journalctl -xe on systemd distros, logread on OpenWrt, dmesg for kernel messages, /var/log/messages on RHEL family, /var/log/syslog on Debian family. For ESXi use vmkernel.log in the DCUI. For Solaris use fmadm faulty. For AIX use errpt -a. The exact error code (for example NO_PUBKEY, 0x803fb112, NodeCreationFailure, NW-2-5) is the thing you grep for in forums and Stack Exchange, not the human-readable sentence next to it.

Confirm identity and privilege. Run id, sudo -l, getent passwd $USER, and on systems with SSSD run sssctl user-checks $USER. About one in five 'why does this not work' tickets are actually 'I am in the wrong account', 'my Kerberos ticket expired', or 'I am hitting a sudoers rule I did not know about'.

Pull the kernel ring buffer with dmesg --since '5 minutes ago' for hardware-level events, and journalctl --since '5 minutes ago' --no-pager for the systemd timeline of the same window. Cross-reference them. Most boot, network, and storage issues on {family} leave a signature in both at the same wall-clock timestamp.

Solution-focused remediation path

If you cannot reproduce the failure consistently, the cause is probably a race condition, a session-cache issue, or environment drift between two hosts that should be identical. Run the failing operation under strace -f -e trace=openat,connect,read,write -o /tmp/trace in one terminal and a second known-good instance in another. Diff the trace files. The first divergence is almost always the bug.

When the failure happens in production but not in dev, do not just diff the application. Diff the kernel version, the libc version, the distro release, the SELinux/AppArmor profile, the cgroup tree, and the systemd unit. uname -a + ldd --version + cat /etc/os-release + getenforce + systemctl show <service> --no-pager | grep -E 'CPU|Memory|Tasks' covers the typical surface. One of those is almost always different between the two environments.

If storage is suspect, capture both the block-device view and the filesystem view. lsblk -f + blkid + df -hT + du -shx /* + findmnt + mount | column -t. For ZFS use zpool status -v and zfs list -t snapshot. For Btrfs use btrfs filesystem usage / and btrfs subvolume list /. About a third of 'disk full' issues on Btrfs are metadata exhaustion, where df shows free space but the filesystem refuses writes.

Automate this fix so you do not do it twice

Wire the fix into a systemd unit override or Ansible role for self-healing

If the underlying cause is a setting that drifts over time, do not script the fix repeatedly. Bake it into a configuration-management role that runs on every check-in. Ansible, Puppet, Chef, SaltStack, and tools like Cockpit, Foreman, and Spacewalk all support enforced state. The role reasserts itself, so even if an operator changes the setting locally, the next run brings it back to the codified state (typically every 30 minutes for Puppet, on cron or systemd-timer for Ansible).

# Ansible task that enforces the corrected setting on every run
- name: Enforce hardened sshd config ansible.builtin.lineinfile: path: /etc/ssh/sshd_config regexp: '^#?PermitRootLogin' line: 'PermitRootLogin no' backup: yes notify: restart sshd

Automate the fix in shell with systemctl, journalctl, and the package manager

On most Linux and BSD systems the most reliable repair primitives are the built-in CLI tools. systemctl status reveals the current service state, journalctl -u exposes the structured log stream, and systemctl reload or restart applies config changes without a reboot. For package management use the distro tool: apt, dnf, zypper, pacman, pkg, opkg, apk. For hardware and inventory checks the canonical readers are lsblk, lspci, lscpu, dmidecode, and lsmod.

# Template - replace SERVICE with the failing unit name
systemctl status SERVICE --no-pager | head -40
journalctl -u SERVICE -n 100 --no-pager
ss -tlnp | grep -i SERVICE
ls -l /etc/SERVICE/ 2>/dev/null
cat /etc/os-release

Add a Prometheus alert or Zabbix trigger so you catch the next occurrence

The cheapest way to never see the same incident twice is a monitoring rule that watches for the symptom (a specific log line, a metric threshold, a service state) and fires into Slack, PagerDuty, or a webhook when it trips. For VMware ESXi 8.0 (Broadcom) the relevant signals come from journalctl filters fed to a log shipper, Prometheus exporters such as node_exporter or blackbox_exporter or a service-specific exporter, and structured log forwarders such as Fluent Bit, Vector, or syslog-ng. Set thresholds against observed normal range, not round numbers.

Common pitfalls and what to watch for

The most common pitfall when fixing this on VMware ESXi 8.0 (Broadcom) is treating it as a one-off rather than as a recurring class of incident. The same misconfiguration tends to happen again after a kernel upgrade, a major distro version bump, or a fleet rollout unless the fix is codified. Add an Ansible role, a Puppet manifest, a SaltStack state, or a Cloud-init drop-in that prevents the same misconfig from being reintroduced. Documentation alone does not survive team turnover.

Another common trap: confirming the fix on a single host and assuming the fleet is healthy. Loop your check across every node, container, and VM that could exhibit the same symptom. If you cannot enumerate the affected scope without a script, you do not yet understand the scope.

Verify the fix worked

• Reproduce the original symptom path. If it still surfaces on any host, container, or VM in the fleet, you have not fixed it.
• Watch for 24 to 48 hours. journalctl --since '24 hours ago' -u <service> -p err and Prometheus query history can mask issues with cached health for 6 to 12 hours, especially for slow-burn memory leaks and disk-fill regressions.
• Run a smoke test under realistic load. Happy-path tests miss race conditions, file-descriptor leaks, and cgroup limits.
• Capture the new state in a runbook so the next person on call does not have to rediscover this. Push it to Confluence or your team wiki, not into Slack.
• If the fix involved a permission or security change, run a CIS Benchmark or DISA STIG audit one more time to confirm you did not open a separate hole while closing this one.

Safety, rollback, blast radius

• Test in a non-production VM, container, or namespace if your environment supports it. The cost of one disposable VM is cheaper than one rollback meeting.
• Export the existing config before changing it. Most VMware ESXi 8.0 (Broadcom) services support --print-defaults, systemctl show, or a documented config-dump command. Capture that to source control before you start.
• Know your rollback path. Some VMware ESXi 8.0 (Broadcom) operations are one-way (irreversible filesystem upgrade like ext3 to ext4 inline, kernel ABI change, removal of an LVM physical volume). Confirm reversibility on the official OS documentation before you commit.
• Be aware of cross-service impact. A change to PAM ripples to every service using it. A change to /etc/resolv.conf affects every name lookup. A change to systemd default.target affects every reboot.
• Maintenance window discipline: if the change touches DNS, certificate rotation, kernel upgrade, or anything that emits TLS handshakes, line up a window with stakeholder notification, not a heroic mid-day swap.

FAQ

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Related guides worth a look while you sort this one out:

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