Unable to vMotion VMs with virtual hardware version 8 or lower to an ESXi host after BIOS update

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• The virtual machine hardware version is version 8 or lower
• The vMotion task fails with the following error reported in the vSphere Client:

The features supported by the processors in this machine are different from the features supported by the processors in the machine on which the virtual machine state was saved.

• The vmware.log file for the VM shows the following error:

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.105Z| vmx| I125: Error: This host has a usermode feature set incompatible with the host on which it was suspended.
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.105Z| vmx| I125: Host: 0x00000400, Checkpoint: 0000000000
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.105Z| vmx| I125: CPUID test failed: 7.edx.
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.105Z| vmx| I125: Msg_Reset:
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.105Z| vmx| I125: [msg.checkpoint.cpucheck.fail.feature] The features supported by the processors in this machine are different from the features supported by the processors in the machine on which the virtual machine state was saved.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5

Cause

The BIOS update can contain updated CPU microcode that adds bits to the CPU register values.  ESXi does not correctly handle this for VMs with hardware version 8 and lower and reports a CPU feature mismatch during the vMotion operation.

Resolution

The issue is resolved in the following vSphere Releases:

ESXi 6.7 EP9 build 13644319 (ESXi670-201905001)
ESXi 6.5 EP14 build 13635690 (ESXi650-201905001)
ESXi 6.0 EP21 build 13635687 (ESXi600-201905001)

Alternatively, the virtual machine hardware version can be upgraded to version 9 or higher.  For more information, see Upgrading a virtual machine to the latest hardware version (multiple versions).