Cross-vCenter migration of VMs with snapshots to vSAN ESA may cause inaccessible objects during data resync.

Products

• VMware vSAN

Issue/Introduction

Avoid objects that become inaccessible after migration.

Symptoms:

• After the cross-vCenter migration of VMs with snapshots to vSAN ESA may cause inaccessible objects during data resync.
• Any type of VM with snapshots are susceptible to this issue including linked-clones.

Environment

VMware vSAN 8.0.x

Cause

This is due to vsanSparse objects with object capability STRICT_GWE created in vSAN ESA during the cross-vCenter migration. They will become inaccessible when a data resync happens. The problem only happens when the VMs have snapshots and are migrated using cross-vCenter from pre-8.0 vCenter to vSAN ESA 8.0 or 8.0.1.

Resolution

Upgrade vCenter/ESXi to 8.0U2

Workaround:
1. Do not do cross vCenter migration for VMs with snapshots to vSAN ESA 8.0 or 8.0.1.
2. If you already migrated the VMs, remove/consolidate all snapshots. After the consolidation, the issue won't surface.