Hello,
we appreciate your contact.

• Which exact sensor(name) and version of PRTG are you using?
  
• Are you monitoring an ESXi host or vCenter?
  

PE018 is a generic "Timeout" error, it can have several distinct source causes.

Kindly also note that the ...(SOAP) sensors rely on VMware's SOAP API (Simple Object Access Protocol) and not on the SNMP.

Best Regards,

It is VMware Virtual Machine (SOAP) and monitoring individual ESXi hosts.

Surprisingly, error started for multiple hosts at a same time and no changes are made on either side.

Hello abhishekg,
thank you for your reply.

• Which exact version of PRTG are you using? (You can check it on PRTG's footer bar (e.g. PRTG Network Monitor 15.4.19.4197)

Please perform the following:

1. Within PRTG, head to the sensor's parent device (The ESXi host), and on it's settings tab, configure the Credentials for VMware/XenServer, set the Session Pool to Create a new session for each scan. You'll also have to re-enter the VMWare credentials when doing so.
2. Within the settinfs from one of the affected [[https://www.paessler.com/manuals/prtg/VMware Virtual Machine (SOAP)|sensors]], configure the Debug Options, set the Sensor Result to Write sensor result to disk .
3. After the next sensor's scan, head to the following folder on the Probe Server which monitors the sensor: "C:\ProgramData\Paessler\PRTG Network Monitor\Logs (Sensors)\" and kindly share with us the contents of the "Result of Sensor [ID].txt".

Best Regards,

Version is 15.4.20.4775+.

I will generate the debug logs and post it.

Thanks...

This what I can see in the log file but starting over again and again:

0:16:08:44.0344241:
starting
######
Starting WebServiceCall with parameters:

soapBody: <RetrieveServiceContent xmlns="urn:vim25"><_this type="ServiceInstance">ServiceInstance</_this></RetrieveServiceContent>

0:16:09:05.1125729:
ResponseFilter: soapenv:Body
######
0:16:09:05.1125729:
Initializing WebRequest
######

Thank you for the provided details.

• Which version of ESXi are you running? Kindly note that the latest releases of PRTG no longer support older versions of ESXi, only versions 5.0, 5.1, 5.5, or 6.0 are currently supported.
• Since you've mentioned that you have several VMWare Sensors and those sensors have a high performance impact, kindly increase their scanning interval to at least 5 minutes, does the behavior change then? (You can change the interval of hundreds of sensors at once using Multi-edit.
• Please review the Probe's log (Path: c$\ProgramData\Paessler\PRTG Network Monitor\Logs (System)\PRTG Probe Log *.log, are there any recent entries similar to the below?

• A restart of the affected ESXi may also resolve the issue in some cases.

Best Regards,

We are running with VMware ESXi 5.5.0 build-1331820

I checked the mentioned logs but did not find any similar errors in that.

Let me try restarting all management services on ESX host.

Hi,

even after restarting services on ESXi, it is not working.

Any idea?

Hello,

In this case kindly open a Support Ticket, we'll need to check your PRTG's logs and understand your setup a little further to be able to explain what is happening.

Best Regards,

After restarting ESXi host where prtg is installed everything is working fine.