Cloning a virtual machine fails with the error: Invalid configuration for device device_number

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
When performing a clone of a virtual machine or template in a virtual distributed switch (vDS) environment, you may experience one of these symptoms:

• Cloning a virtual machine fails.
• Cold or Hot cloning of a virtual machine fails.
• Cloning a virtual machine from a template fails.
• You may see messages similar to:
  
   08:22:45.892 0452 info 'App' opID=2f799c68] [VpxLRO] -- FINISH task-51268 -- vm-9803 -- vim.VirtualMachine.clone -- 54EBBA36-6F9E-4CC4-95DA-653577BD07DE(69DFA38B-CE50-4700-8425-D3BBABD01589)
  08:22:45.892 04524 info 'App' opID=2f799c68] [VpxLRO] -- ERROR task-51268 -- vm-9803 -- vim.VirtualMachine.clone: vim.fault.InvalidDeviceSpec:
  Result:
  (vim.fault.InvalidDeviceSpec) {
  dynamicType = <unset>,
  faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
  property = "virtualDeviceSpec.device.backing",
  deviceIndex = 4,
  msg = "Invalid configuration for device 'device_number'."

Environment

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

Cause

During the clone procedure, a vDS port requires a reservation. This issue occurs if the reservation expires too quickly.

Resolution

This issue is resolved in 5.1, 5.0 update 1 and 4.1 update 3 

To work around this issue when you are unable to upgrade:

• Remove the virtual machine from the vDS portgroup and add it to a virtual machine portgroup on the Standard vSwitch.
• Clone the virtual machine.
• After the clone operation completes, revert the virtual machine to the vDS portgroup
  
  Note: Issue has been seen while using ESXi 5.5
  
  
  
  

Additional Information