Error: A specified parameter was not correct while performing vMotion fails at 15%

Products

VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

Performing a vMotion of a virtual machine fails with the error:

A specified parameter was not correct. path

In the /var/log/hostd.log file, you see entries similar to:

<YYYY-MM-DD>T<time> [7EFC2B70 verbose 'Vmsvc'] Initializing registering virtual machine [66]: /vmfs/volumes/527021ec-########-####-##########e9/VM/VM.vmx
</time><YYYY-MM-DD>T<time> </time>[7EFC2B70 info 'Vmsvc.vm:/vmfs/volumes/527021ec-########-####-##########e9/VM1/VM1.vmx'] Error retrieving MemoryClientStats for file layout : vmodl.fault.ManagedObjectNotFound
<YYYY-MM-DD>T<time></time> [7EFC2B70 verbose 'Default'] InitializeFileObjectIfAccessible: Datastore Accessibility could not be inferred from relative filepath:
<YYYY-MM-DD>T<time></time> [7EFC2B70 warning 'Vmsvc.vm:/vmfs/volumes/527021ec-########-####-##########e9/VM1/VM1.vmx'] Could not read host log /vmfs/volumes/527021ec-########-####-##########e9/VM/
<YYYY-MM-DD>T<time></time> [7EFC2B70 info 'Vimsvc.ha-eventmgr'] Event 2573 : Registered VM1 on ESXiHost.domain.com in ha-datacenter.

Note: The preceding log excerpts are only examples. Date, time, and environmental variables may vary depending on your environment.
Listing datastores in the destination host shows entries similar to:

# ls -l /vmfs/volumes

ls: /vmfs/volumes/527021ec-########-####-##########e9: No such device or address

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1

Cause

This issue occurs when the destination host cannot read the virtual machine file.

For example, when the datastore cannot be accessed from the host.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, check for storage issues such as Fibre Channel pathing errors or IO aborts.
Ensure the datastore is properly shared among the ESXi hosts, See Sharing a VMFS Datastore Across Hosts.