vMotion fails at 66% with the error: Cannot open the disk 'path_to_vmdk_file' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Cannot vMotion a virtual machine
• vMotion fails at 66%
• You are unable to ping the virtual machine that is being migrated
• In the vmware.log file, located at /vmfs/volumes/DATASTORE_NAME/VM_DIRECTORY/, you see entries similar to:
  
  Migrate_SetFailure: The migration has exceeded the maximum switchover time of 100 second(s). ESX has preemptively failed the migration to allow the virtual machine to continue running on the source. To avoid this failure, either increase the maximum allowable switchover time or wait until the virtual machine is performing a less intensive workload.
  CPT current = 3, requesting 6
  Checkpoint_Unstun: vm stopped for 100081595 us
  vcpu-0| SCSI: switching scsi0 to push completion mode
  
  DISK: OPEN scsi0:0 'path_to_vmdk_file' persistent R[]
  AIOGNRC: Failed to open 'path_to_vmdk_file' : Failed to lock the file (67) (0x2013).
  AIOMGR: AIOMgr_OpenWithRetry: File 'path_to_vmdk_file' locked (try 0)
  AIOGNRC: Failed to open 'path_to_vmdk_file' : Failed to lock the file (67) (0x2013).
  AIOMGR: AIOMgr_OpenWithRetry: File 'path_to_vmdk_file' locked (try 1)
  AIOGNRC: Failed to open 'path_to_vmdk_file' : Failed to lock the file (67) (0x2013).
  AIOMGR: AIOMgr_OpenWithRetry: File 'path_to_vmdk_file' locked (try 2)
  
  [msg.disk.noBackEnd] Cannot open the disk 'path_to_vmdk_file' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.
  [msg.disk.configureDiskError] Reason: Failed to lock the file.----------------------------------------
  VMXNET3 user: Ethernet0 Driver Info: version = 243573 gosBits = 2 gosType = 2, gosVer = 24608, gosMisc = 193
  CPT current = 6, requesting 0
  Msg_Post: Error
  [msg.checkpoint.continuesync.fail] An error occurred while restarting virtual machine after taking a snapshot. The virtual machine will be powered off.
  ----------------------------------------
  Migrate: Trying to 'unstun' when not stunned!

Environment

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

Cause

This issue may occur if the destination host experiences an All Paths Down (APD) state.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, reboot the host to clear the APD state.