When Changed Block Tracking is enabled in VMware vSphere 5.x, vMotion migration fails with error: The source detected that the destination failed to resume

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
When Changed Block Tracking (CBT) is enabled in a VMware vSphere 5.x environment, you experience these symptoms:

• vMotion migration fails with the error:
  
  A general system error occurred: The source detected that the destination failed to resume.
  
  
  
• Trying to power on a virtual machine fails with the error:
  
  Cannot power on VM on HOSTNAME in DATACENTER. Could not open/create change tracking file
  
  
  
• In the virtual machine monitor log (vmware.log), you see these errors:
  
  
  • DISKLIB-CTK : Could not open change tracking file "/vmfs/volumes/vmfs_uuid/vm_folder/vm_name-ctk.vmdk": Change tracking invalid or disk in use.
    
    
  • DISKLIB-LIB : Failed to open '/vmfs/volumes/vmfs_uuid/vm_folder/vm_name.vmdk' with flags 0xa Could not open/create change tracking file (2108)

Cause

The mirror driver does not clean up the locks properly on the Change Tracking Files (CTK) when migrating a virtual disk (VMDK) separately from the configuration file (VMX). Storage vMotion migration completes successfully, but subsequent vMotion migration or power-on operations can fail.

Note: Storage DRS may trigger Storage vMotion migration for the disks independently from the configuration file, resulting in the issue described above.

Resolution

This is a known issue affecting the mirror driver in vSphere 5.x. Currently, there is no resolution in vSphere 5.0 and 5.1.

This issue is resolved in these updates of vSphere 5.5 Update 2:

• vCenter Server 5.5 Update 2, available at VMware Downloads. For more information, see the Resolved Issues section in the vCenter Server 5.5 Update 2 Release Notes.
• ESXi 5.5 Update 2, available at VMware Downloads. For more information, see the Resolved Issues section in the VMware ESXi 5.5 Update 2 Release Notes.
  
  

Work around an existing failure

To work around an existing failure:

1. To enable the migration of the virtual machine, move the CTK files into a sub-folder. It is not possible to delete files that are in use, or locked. New CTK files are created.
   
2. To clean up the locks, shut down the virtual machine and disable Changed Block Tracking. For more information, see Enabling Changed Block Tracking (CBT) on virtual machines (1031873).
   

To prevent the issue:

• Always migrate the virtual disks and the configuration file together to the destination datastore.
• Set the option Keep VMDKs together for all virtual machines in the datastore cluster. This option also applies to the .vmx file.
  
  To configure the Keep VMDKs together settings, right-click the datastore cluster and click Edit Settings > Virtual Machine Settings. Select the relevant virtual machine.

Additional Information

To be alerted when this document is updated, click the Subscribe to Article link in the Actions box. For more information on Storage vMotion Mirror Mode, see the Features of vSphere. VMware vSphere 5.x で CBT (Change Block Tracking) が有効な場合、vMotion が次のエラーで失敗する：The source detected that the destination failed to resume
VMware vSphere 5.x 中启用“更改块跟踪”后，vMotion 迁移失败并显示“源已检测到无法恢复目标”错误