Storage vMotion fails with Error 195887107

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article provides information to resolve an issue when a storage vMotion task failure occurs when the powered on virtual machine is using disks with the multi-writer attribute.

Symptoms:
When running a storage vMotion task on a powered on virtual machine, you experience these symptoms:

• The storage vMotion task fails.
• You see the error similar to:
  
  Failed waiting for data. Error 195887107. Not found. Failed to start SvMotion. Error during disk setup. A fatal internal error occurred. See the virtual machine's log for more details.
  
  
   
• In the vmware.log file of the affected virtual machine, you see entries similar to:
  
  Worker#2| W115: Mirror: scsi1:0: SVMotionDiskSetup: You may not migrate a multi-writer disk
   
• In the /var/log/vmkernel.log file of the ESXi host, you see entries similar to:
  
  2019-01-17T14:07:59.549Z cpu18:331719)Hbr: 3395: Migration start received (worldID=1347665) (migrateType=2) (event=0) (isSource=0) (sharedConfig=0)
  2019-01-17T14:07:59.789Z cpu21:76251)Migrate: vm 76253: 4049: Setting FSR info: Source ts = 8819671840104550966, src ip = <127.0.0.1> dest ip = <127.0.0.1> Dest wid = 1347665 using UNSHARED swap
  2019-01-17T14:07:59.789Z cpu21:76251)Hbr: 3395: Migration start received (worldID=76253) (migrateType=2) (event=0) (isSource=1) (sharedConfig=0)
  2019-01-17T14:08:02.091Z cpu33:76251)WARNING: Migrate: 6279: 8819671840104550966 S: Migration considered a failure by the VMX.  It is most likely a timeout, but check the VMX log for the true error.
  2019-01-17T14:08:02.091Z cpu33:76251)WARNING: Migrate: 273: 8819671840104550966 S: Failed: Migration determined a failure by the VMX (0xbad0092) @0x418016717547
  2019-01-17T14:08:02.091Z cpu33:76251)Hbr: 3489: Migration end received (worldID=76253) (migrateType=2) (event=1) (isSource=1) (sharedConfig=0)
  2019-01-17T14:08:02.095Z cpu0:331719)WARNING: FSR: 355: 8819671840104550966 D: Could not find migrate info for remote world 76253!
  2019-01-17T14:08:02.095Z cpu0:331719)WARNING: FSR: 4255: 8819671840104550966 D: Failed to find remote FSR.  Did the migration fail?
  2019-01-17T14:08:02.186Z cpu26:68707)Config: 706: "SIOControlFlag2" = 1, Old Value: 2, (Status: 0x0)
  2019-01-17T14:08:02.488Z cpu4:331719)WARNING: Migrate: 6279: 8819671840104550966 D: Migration considered a failure by the VMX.  It is most likely a timeout, but check the VMX log for the true error.
  2019-01-17T14:08:02.488Z cpu4:331719)WARNING: Migrate: 273: 8819671840104550966 D: Failed: Migration determined a failure by the VMX (0xbad0092) @0x418016717547
  
  Note: The preceding log excerpts are only examples. Date, time, and environmental variables may vary depending on your environment.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7
VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0
VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

Cause

This issue occurs due to the virtual machine using disk(s) configured with the multi-writer attribute.

As the virtual machine is using disk(s) with the multi-writer attribute, neither shared nor non-shared disks of the VM can be migrated using storage vMotion as the virtual machine stun is required to initiate the storage migration.

Resolution

This is an expected behavior when running a storage vMotion task on powered on virtual machines that are using disks with the multi-writer attribute.
The multi-writer option allows VMFS-based disks to be shared by multiple virtual machines. For more information, see Enabling or disabling simultaneous write protection provided by VMFS using the multi-writer flag (313527).

Workaround:
To work around this issue:

1. Power off the affected virtual machine.
2. Perform the storage vMotion.
3. Power on the virtual machine once the storage vMotion task is completed.

Additional Information

Review any backup software tools messages about disk space issues. Snapshots of the virtual machine will impact storage vMotions if space on the  LUN is less than 1.5 times the total of the VM's snapshots sizes. Confirm with your company storage team the LUN the virtual machine resides on has enough over head space to consolidate data and migrate. If not expand the current LUN where the virtual machine resides and consolidate the data. If the LUN can not expand space a clone of the Virtual Machines disk to another datastore is an option Cloning and converting virtual machine disks with vmkfstools (343140)

The man page on the ESXI host use the command: vmkfstools -h

example syntax:  
vmkfstools -i "/vmfs/volumes/currentDatastore/vm_name/vm_name.vmdk" "/vmfs/volumes/newDatastore/vm_name/vm_name.vmdk" -d thin -a buslogic