CentOS on VMware: vmxnet3 Failed to activate dev: error 1

I’ve been experimenting with vSphere 6 and vRealize Automation in my lab environment and hit an interesting problem when deploying CentOS 6 & 7 VMs. I had created a network in NSX for the tenant, which created 2 distributed port groups on my distributed switch: vxw-dsv-XX-virtualwire-1-sid-XXXX-name and vxw-vmknicPg-dvs-XX. For some reason I could only see the xw-vmknicPg-dvs group in vRealize so I made a poor assumption and assigned it to the tenant.

I deployed the VMs and when networking in CentOS started I got the following error:

vmxnet3 0000:03:00.0 ens160: intr type 3, mode 0, 2 vectors allocated

vmxnet3 0000:03:00.0 ens160: Failed to active dev: error 1

I could reproduce this error by running

rmmod vmxnet3

modprobe vmxnet3

I tried upgrading vmware tools and switched to open vm tools, but this made no difference. Eventually I manually changed the attached port group in vCenter and the error went away and the driver loaded correctly. I then went back into the tenant reservations and the vxw-dsv-XX-virtualwire now appeared and I could assign it.