System fails to boot with "SP failure. Resetting SP from primary FW" message

Applies to

• ONTAP 9
• AFF-A300
• FAS8200

Issue

• Service Porcessor (SP) reports "SP load is high" error in the console log and a node goes down.
• ONTAP is unable to boot from Loader with the following error after the node down.

Example:

LOADER-A> boot_ontap
Loading X86_64/freebsd・・・
Loading X86_64/freebsd・・・
Starting program at ・・・
NetApp Data ONTAP 9.3P4

***************************************
This platform is not supported in this release.
The system will now halt
***************************************
BIOS Version: 11.1
Portions Copyright (C) 2014-2017 NetApp, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Initializing System Memory ...
Loading Device Drivers ...
Waiting for SP ...
SP failure. Resetting SP from primary FW. This can take a few minutes

• Even if the controller is replaced, the system gets the same error and cannot boot the system.
• The following message appears in the BMC events all log on the partner node.

Example:

Record 649: Sat Oct 15 13:05:38.834785 2016 [Agent.notice]: 720.089: 150 : Local Serial Exchange Error Internal MLER[4] asserted

Record 1003: Mon Oct 17 08:38:52.362718 2016 [Agent.notice]: 193.618: 151 : Local Invalid Serial Exchange Bus Internal MLER[5] asserted

Record 807: Thu Jan 01 00:00:36.931067 1970 [Agent.notice]: 000.267: 152 : Midplane I2C Local Buffers Not Ready Internal MLER[6] de-asserted

Record 797: Mon Oct 17 08:52:11.001689 2016 [Agent.notice]: 919.800: 148 : Midplane Local Grant Timeout Internal MLER[2] asserted