Attempting to power on a virtual machine fails with the error: Could not open/create change tracking file

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

When hardware is upgraded to version 10 after upgrading to ESXi 5.5 Update 3a or later, you experience these symptoms:

• Attempting to power on a virtual machine fails.
• You see the error:
  
  cannot open the disk vmdk or one of the snapshot disks it depends on. Could not open/create change tracking file.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5

Cause

This issue occurs when hostd opens the disks for hardware version upgrade and the corresponding ctk files are opened in NOIO mode.

Resolution

This issue is resolved in ESXi 5.5, Patch Release ESXi550-201608001.

To work around this issue:

1. Disable Changed Block Tracking(CBT) for all the virtual machines before upgrading hardware version and VMtools.
2. Enable CBT after the upgrade is completed. For more information, see Enabling or disabling Changed Block Tracking (CBT) on virtual machines (1031873).

Additional Information

If the hardware version was not upgraded and you see the symptoms listed, see Powering on a virtual machine fails after a storage outage with the error: could not open/create change tracking file (2009244).

Enabling or disabling Changed Block Tracking (CBT) on virtual machines