The error referenced in the title was one I ran into today while trying to start some VMs. I finally found a KB somewhat related to this issue and the workaround did the trick for me.
Basically, the vCenter Workflow Manager service had stopped on my vCenter server. In my case, I’m running the 6.0.0 vApp so I had to open an SSH session and enter the following:
shell.set –enabled true
shell
service-control –status vmware-vpx-workflow
(this command confirmed the service was stopped)
service-control –start vmware-vpx-workflow
Once running, I was able to start VMs again from vCenter.
Not sure why this was so hard to find in a web search but hopefully the search engines will pick up this blog post and save people some time!
See also:
VMware KB: Stopping, starting, or restarting VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.0 services
VMware KB: Stopping, starting, or restarting VMware vCenter Server 6.0 services
26 responses to “Cannot Start a VM – A general system error occurred: Connection refused”
Thanks! This worked for me although I had a different issue but same symptom. vmware-vpx-work service was already running so I checked the logs and for some reason, vcenter was attempting to connect to localhost instead of wsxhost when powering on. Restarted the service and its now connecting to the correct host.
Thank you for posting this! This was exactly what I needed
Thanks for the post, very helpful!
Thanks u its helps us to resolve the issue.
Thanks John, it works!
Thanks for sharing.
Just had an issue where I couldn't power on VM's in vCenter. I was able to start the VM via an SSH session to the ESXi host it was on, but that didn't address the root cause. Your article did. Thanks!
Thank´s
thank´s.
Fantastic. Running vCenter on a Windows server, had this same problem, and checked to see if this service had stopped. The full name of the service in Windows is "VMware vCEnter workflow manager" – started it and works perfectly.
Thank you!
TADA, brilliant. solved my problem.
worked for me too, thanks.
for me just worked when i rebooted all the ESX nodes in the cluster, as the service in the vCenter was running, and the restart didn't make it.
Thanks 🙂
In my case it didn't worked, I have an error code 1, some help is appreciate!!!
This saved me an agonizing phone call and follow up discussions as to what happened. Thanks!
This helped me finding the cause of the "connection refused" error, unfortunately the workflow service would't start. a reboot of the vcenter appliance did the trick.
Thanks, this helped me out!
I received an error message when I tried to start the service and it showed as still being stopped when I rechecked the status, but the VMs now start and don't give me the general system error so I guess it's a success?
Same for me! I'll just schedule a reboot of the vCenter and Platform server VMs at some point I guess…
Nah still wasn't quite right and the vCenter appliance even hung on rebooting. Reset it and now all is good again!
This is happened to me this morning, and this worked flawlessly. Thanks. This is what the internet is for, not posting dumb crap online, and getting in trouble over it.
Hah, glad you got benefit. And I agree, that's pretty much my rule of thumb when posting on blogs or social media! 🙂
Hi John. We have the same version 6.0.0. and your information was perfect to solve our problem. Thank you very much.
Wagner Bagatelli – São Paulo – Brazil
Yup, works for me too! Same version.
Thanks, this worked for me, managed to power on my vm after running the command.