Opening a console to a virtual machine fails with the error: Unable to connect to the MKS: Error connecting to /bin/vmx process.

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• When you open a console to a virtual machine, you see the error:
  
  Unable to connect to the MKS: Error connecting to /bin/vmx process

• Attempting to shut down a virtual machine fails.

Environment

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

Cause

This issue can occur because of a corrupt virtual machine configuration (.vmx) file, located in the home directory of the virtual machine.

Resolution

To work around this issue, power off the affected virtual machine and recreate it.

To recreate the affected virtual machine:

1. Power off the virtual machine. If the machine fails to power off, see Powering off a virtual machine on an ESXi host (1014165).
2. Create a new virtual machine with the same configuration as the affected virtual machine but without any virtual machine disk (vmdk) files attached.
3. Remove the virtual machine disk files from the affected virtual machine.
4. Add the virtual machine disk files from the affected virtual machine to the new virtual machine.
5. Power on the new virtual machine.

Additional Information

Unable to power off the virtual machine in an ESXi host
仮想マシンのコンソールを開こうとすると次のエラーで失敗する：Unable to connect to the MKS: Error connecting to /bin/vmx process.
打开虚拟机控制台失败并出现错误：无法连接到 MKS: 连接到 /bin/vmx 进程时出错。