vMotion fails with the error: A general system error occurred: failed to initiate VMotion dest (vim.fault.AlreadyExists)

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• vMotion on a powered on virtual machine fails
• You see the error:
  
  A general system error occurred: failed to initiate VMotion dest (vim.fault.AlreadyExists)

cannot-vmotion vmotion-fails vmotion-vm vmotion-times-out

Environment

VMware ESXi 3.5.x Embedded
VMware ESX Server 3.5.x
VMware VirtualCenter 2.5.x
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Installable
VMware vCenter Server 4.0.x

Resolution

This issue may occur if the virtual machine is already registered in the Inventory of the destination ESX host. As a result, vMotion fails because the virtual machine already exists on the destination host.

To resolve this issue, first try restarting the mgmt-vmware and vmware-vpxa agents on the destination ESX host. For more information, see Restarting the Management agents on an ESX or ESXi Server (1003490).

If restarting the Management agents does not resolve the issue, right-click on the virtual machine from the Inventory on the destination ESX host and choose Remove from Inventory, then retry the vMotion operation.

If you are unable to remove the virtual machine from Inventory with vSphere Client connected to vCenter Server or directly to an ESX host as root, use the command line.

To remove a virtual machine from Inventory from the command line:

1. Connect to the ESX host console either directly or using a remote KVM or SSH session.
2. Log in as root.
3. List the inventory on the ESX host with the command:
   
   vmware-cmd -l
   
   The output lists the virtual machines registered and the full path to their .vmx files. For example:
   
   /vmfs/volumes/4b68006c-e3e50289-0916-0018fe75923e/W2K3/W2K3.vmx
   
4. Unregister the virtual machine with the command:
   
   
   Note: The ESX host should not be in maintenance mode when attempting to unregister the virtual machine.
   
   vmware-cmd -s unregister /vmfs/volumes/4b68006c-e3e50289-0916-0018fe75923e/W2K3/W2K3.vmx

Additional Information

Restarting the Management agents in ESXi