Cannot power on restored virtual machine due to locked replication delta disks
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Cannot power on restored virtual machine due to locked replication delta disks

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Article ID: 312675

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Updated On:

Products

VMware vSphere ESXi VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

  • A virtual machine fails to power on after being restored from backup. When attempting to start the VM via the vSphere Client, you encounter errors indicating that a virtual SCSI device cannot be created due to missing vSphere Replication (HBR) filter parameters.
  • In the vSphere Client or ESXi host tasks, you see entries similar to the following:

An error was received from the ESX host while powering on VM virtual_machine.
Failed to start the virtual machine.
Module DevicePowerOn power on failed.

An error was received from the ESX host while powering on VM Guest_recovered.
Failed to start the virtual machine.
Module DevicePowerOn power on failed.
Unable to create virtual SCSI device for scsi0:0, '/vmfs/volumes/xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx/Guest_recovered.vmdk'
Failed to attach filter 'hbr_filter' to scsi0:0: Bad parameter (195887111).
hbr_filter missing required option: gid.

An error was received from the ESX host while powering on VM Guest_recovered.
Failed to start the virtual machine.
Module DevicePowerOn power on failed.
Unable to create virtual SCSI device for scsi0:0, '/vmfs/volumes/xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx/Guest_recovered.vmdk'
Failed to attach filter 'None' to scsi0:0: Not found (195887107).

An unexpected error was received from the ESX host while powering on VM vm-number

  • The following error message is observed under the tasks for ESXi hosts:

    Task Name : Power On virtual machine
    Status    : hbr_filter missing required option: gid. Failed to start the virtual machine. Module DevicePowerOn power on failed. Unable to create virtual SCSI device for scsi0:0, '/vmfs/volumes/xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx/VMware/VMware.vmdk' Failed to attach filter 'hbr_filter' to scsi0:0: Bad parameter (195887111).
    Error stack:
    Module DevicePowerOn power on failed.
    Unable to create virtual SCSI device for scsi0:0, '/vmfs/volumes/xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx/VMware/VMware.vmdk'
    Failed to attach filter 'hbr_filter' to scsi0:0: Bad parameter (195887111). hbr_filter missing required option: gid.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi

Cause

The virtual machine configuration file (.vmx) contains stale vSphere Replication (HBR) filter metadata. When backup software restores a VM that was previously under active replication, these filter entries are preserved in the configuration. During power-on, the ESXi host attempts to initialize the hbr_filter for the virtual disk but fails because the required replication state parameters (such as the Group ID or gid) are missing, or the associated .psf state files are absent in the restored directory.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, remove the stale replication filter entries from the virtual machine configuration file.

Prerequisites:

  1. Ensure the affected virtual machine is powered off.
  2. Take a snapshot or copy of the current .vmx file before editing.

Steps to Modify the Virtual Machine Configuration

    1. Connect to the ESXi host where the virtual machine is registered using SSH.
    2. Navigate to the virtual machine directory on the datastore:
      • cd /vmfs/volumes/####/####/
    3. Open the .vmx configuration file using a text editor (e.g., vi).
    4. Locate lines containing hbr_filter entries and comment them out by adding a # character at the beginning of each line. These lines typically appear as follows:
      • #scsi0:0.hbr_filter.rdid = "RDID-####-####-####-####"
      • #scsi0:0.hbr_filter.persistent = "hbr-persistent-state-RDID-####-####-####-####.psf"
      • #scsi0:1.filters = "hbr_filter"
    5. Save the changes and exit the editor.
    6. Reload the virtual machine configuration to register the changes with the ESXi host:
      • vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms | grep <VM-Name>
      • vim-cmd vmsvc/reload
    7. Power on the virtual machine from the vSphere Client.

Post-Resolution Steps:

  1. Once the virtual machine is powered on and the guest operating system is accessible:
  2. Remove the virtual machine from the previous active replication configuration. (etain the seeds if the VM needs to be added again)
  3. If replication is required again, add the virtual machine back to the replication task.
  4. Select the retained replica disks on the target datastore as seeds during the replication configuration to avoid a full initial synchronization.



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