VMware Backup Fails with VIX_E_HOST_NETWORK_CONN_REFUSED – How to Fix?

Tobias Whitmore

I recently ran into a problem while backing up VMware virtual machines. The backup keeps failing, and the error logs show the following error: VIX_E_HOST_NETWORK_CONN_REFUSED. Here are the details:

Runlog / Backend Logs:
[ERROR:3803#Vmware server refused connection error (== VIX_E_HOST_NETWORK_CONN_REFUSED)]: open disk error, pathname:[migration_volume] msabir_test_restored/msabir_test_restored_0.vmdk.

The VMware environment itself seems fine, but the backup task just won’t go through. Has anyone encountered this issue before?

Tobias Whitmore

Then here is the screenshot. Can you take a look?

Colin

I ran into the same issue before. It turned out that the ESXi server’s data transfer port (902) wasn’t open. Once I opened port 902 in the firewall/network settings and reran the backup, it worked perfectly.

I recommend checking your port configuration, especially for remote or cross-host backups. This port needs to be accessible for the backup to succeed.