VIO Error: Console is currently unavailable when opening VM console

Products

• VMware
• VMware Integrated OpenStack

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• End-user cannot open VM console with an error "Error: Console is currently unavailable" via Horizon UI
• You can see logs in "nova-compute" service similar to:

2020-09-16T12:44:11Z 2020-09-16 12:44:11.668 1 ERROR oslo_messaging.rpc.server [req-0403065c-b6ef-42f1-afcf-33abf24fe134 327e5a0bf7f61d694d2f89b3a4b3a0ef8007c31be007115d72b211f0657adc64 52fc414403de429a832dd27981c22e2a - bfdbb50d70f549f5
b09ac37ec698e589 bfdbb50d70f549f5b09ac37ec698e589] Exception during message handling: RemoteError: Remote error: DBDataError (pymysql.err.DataError) (1406, u"Data too long for column 'internal_access_path' at row 1")

Note: The preceding log excerpts are only examples. Date, time, and environmental variables may vary depending on your environment.

Environment

VMware Integrated OpenStack 6.x
VMware Integrated Openstack 7.x

Cause

This is caused by the size of internal_access_path field in  internal_access_path.
If vmx config path becomes longer,  nova-compute cannot insert a row containing the information of a MKS ticket and vmx config path to this table.

For example, SvMotion for a VIO instance causes the change of vmx config path describe in Renaming a virtual machine and its files in VMware ESXi and ESX

Resolution

This is a known issue in VMware Integrated Openstack 6.x.
This is a known issue in VMware Integrated Openstack 7.x.

Workaround:

1. Rename the vm from <INSTANCE NAME> (<INSTANCE UUID>) to <INSTANCE UUID> through vSphere Web UI.
2. sVmotion the VM to another datastore. The VM location will change to /vmfs/volumes/<VMFS UUID>/<INSTANCE UUID>/<INSTANCE UUID>.vmx. At this time vm console should work.
3. (Optional) sVmotion it back to original datastore.
4. (Optional) rename it back to <INSTANCE NAME> (<INSTANCE UUID>) through vSphere Web UI.