Cloning a virtual machine using customization fails at 40% with the error: fault.CustomizationPending.summary

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• You cannot clone a virtual machine using customization
• Cloning a virtual machine using customization fails at 40%
• You see the error:
  
  fault.CustomizationPending.summary

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 5.1.x
VMware vCenter Server 5.0.x
VMware VirtualCenter 2.5.x
VMware vCenter Server 4.1.x
VMware vCenter Server 4.0.x

Resolution

The error fault.CustomizationPending.summary indicates that there is a customization pending on the source virtual machine which must be allowed to complete before being cloned to another virtual machine.

To avoid this issue, ensure that a virtual machine has enough time to boot and finish customization before you clone and customize it to another virtual machine.