Incompatible device backing specified for device "13" , while trying to perform Storage vMotion of VMs.

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• Unable to perform SvMotion .
• Memory vMotion of the same VM across hosts works fine.
• When NIC is removed SvMotion works fine.
• SvMotion without OS will be successful.
• No RDM's Attached
• CD/DVD drive or floppy drive not attached to the VM.

Cause

• The VM backed up in one site, and then restored it to another site by a backup software. Since the original network port group does not exist in target site, network port group of this VM is empty.
• When their is no valid Port-Group mapped to the NIC, SvMotion will fail with the mentioned error.

We can confirm the problem with the vpxa.log in ESXi host,

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS info vpxa[2100997] [Originator@6876 sub=Default opID=lye1uvlu-289417-auto-67be-h5:70031572-e5-01-11] [VpxLRO] -- ERROR task-342225 -- vpxa -- vpxapi.VpxaService.createVm: vim.fault.InvalidDeviceBacking:
--> Result:
--> (vim.fault.InvalidDeviceBacking) {
-->    faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
-->    faultMessage = <unset>,
-->    property = "deviceName",
-->    deviceIndex = 13
-->    msg = "Incompatible device backing specified for device '13'."
--> }

Starting from this log entry "Incompatible device backing specified for device '13'.", look downwards to find the keyword "vim.vm.device.VirtualDeviceSpec". The first "vim.vm.device.VirtualDeviceSpec" starts from 0 and we need to count up to the 13th, then we see it's a NIC with empty "backing". This is where the problem lies.

-->       (vim.vm.device.VirtualDeviceSpec) {
-->          operation = "add",
-->          fileOperation = <unset>,
-->          device = (vim.vm.device.VirtualVmxnet3) {
-->             dynamicProperty = <unset>,
-->             key = 4001,
-->             deviceInfo = (vim.Description) {
-->                label = "Network adapter 2",
-->                summary = ""
-->             },
-->             backing = (vim.vm.device.VirtualEthernetCard.LegacyNetworkBackingInfo) {
-->                deviceName = "",
-->                useAutoDetect = false
-->             }

A normal NIC is like below.

-->       (vim.vm.device.VirtualDeviceSpec) {
-->          operation = "add",
-->          fileOperation = <unset>,
-->          device = (vim.vm.device.VirtualVmxnet3) {
-->             dynamicProperty = <unset>,
-->             key = 4000,
-->             deviceInfo = (vim.Description) {
-->                label = "Network adapter 1",
-->                summary = "DVSwitch: 50 05 26 57 b6 be 2e f7-68 ab 2e 1b 32 3c ba 9c"
-->             },
-->             backing = (vim.vm.device.VirtualEthernetCard.DistributedVirtualPortBackingInfo) {
-->                port = (vim.dvs.PortConnection) {
-->                   switchUuid = "50 05 26 57 b6 be 2e f7-68 ab 2e 1b 32 3c ba 9c",
-->                   portgroupKey = "dvportgroup-1037",
-->                   portKey = "20",
-->                   connectionCookie = 161126494
-->                }
-->             },

 

Resolution

Select either of the options provided below to resolve the issue:

• Add the valid port-group from the edit setting of the VM under NIC or from Networks tag.
• Remove the NIC from the VM.

Additional Information