Powering on a virtual machine fails with the error: Invalid memory reservation request

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Cannot power on a virtual machine
• Powering on a virtual machine fails
• You see one of these errors:
  
  
  • Invalid memory reservation request: 0 (reservation) + <value1> (overhead) pages exceeds allowable value <value2>
  • Invalid memory reservation request: <value1> (reservation) + <value2> (overhead) pages exceeds allowable value <value3>

power-on-vm vm-power-on-fails

Environment

VMware ESXi 4.0.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Installable
VMware ESX 4.1.x
VMware ESX 4.0.x

Resolution

The error Invalid memory reservation request: 0 (reservation) + <value1> (overhead) pages exceeds allowable value <value2> indicates that the virtual machine power on operation requires more memory in its parent resource pool than what is currently available.

To resolve this issue, try one of these options:

• Increase the amount of memory reserved by the parent resource pool.
• If there are other virtual machines under the same parent resource pool, decrease the amount of memory reserved by the other virtual machines.

The error Invalid memory reservation request: <value1> (reservation) + <value2> (overhead) pages exceeds allowable value <value3> occurs when the requested memory reservation for the virtual machine cannot be satisfied by the parent or one of the ancestor resource pools.

To resolve this issue, try one of these options:

• Decrease the amount of reserved memory requested for this virtual machine.
• Increase the amount of memory reserved by the parent resource pool and/or possibly the ancestor resource pools.