Deleting a virtual machine disk (VMDK) fails with the error: This operation not allowed in the current state

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

When the ESXi host on which the virtual machine resides is not in Maintenance Mode, but shares an NFS datastore with another host holding higher Managed Object Reference (MoRef) value in vCenter Server which is in Maintenance Mode, you experience these symptoms:

• You are are unable to delete a VMDK disk
• Attempting to delete a VMDK disk fails
• When attempting to delete a VMDK, you see the error:
  
  This operation not allowed in the current state

Environment

VMware ESX 4.0.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware ESX 4.1.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Installable
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Embedded

Cause

Resolution

This is a known issue affecting all vSphere versions.

To work around this issue, remove the host holding a higher MoRef value from Maintenance Mode and then delete the VMDK disk. To determine the MoRef value of the host preventing the deletion, see Looking up Managed Object Reference (MoRef) in vCenter Server (1017126).

Additional Information

To be alerted when this document is updated, click the Subscribe to Article link in the Actions boxLooking up Managed Object Reference (MoRef) in vCenter Server
VMDK ディスクの削除が次のエラーで失敗する：This operation not allowed in the current state