Troubleshooting an Attempted operation cannot be performed in the current state error
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Troubleshooting an Attempted operation cannot be performed in the current state error

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Article ID: 334146

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Updated On:

Products

VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

  • The virtual machine fails to power on
  • When mounting an NFS share from the service console, the virtual machine does not power on if the virtual machine is configured to use an ISO on an NFS mount
  • Virtual Infrastructure Client displays the following error message:

    Attempted operation cannot be performed in the current state.

  • The following appears in the /var/log/vmware/hostd.log :

    [2008-05-02 13:17:11.049 'BaseLibs' 31955888 info] Mount VM completion for vm: /vmfs/volumes/########-####-########d641/isoTest/isoTest.vmx
    [2008-05-02 13:17:11.074 'BaseLibs' 31955888 info] Mount VM Complete: /vmfs/volumes/########-####-########d641/isoTest/isoTest.vmx, Return code: OK
    [2008-05-02 13:17:11.074 'vm:/vmfs/volumes/########-####-########d641/isoTest/isoTest.vmx' 18607024 info] Question info: Invalid value "/vmbuild/GEOS46_FACTORY.iso" for configuration key "ide0:0.fileName". Value was not accepted by rule "Virtual IDE Devices".
    Virtual machine not configured according to rules specified in /etc/vmware/configrules.



Environment

VMware ESX Server 3.5.x

Resolution

Since the Release of ESX 3.5, there is a new file called /etc/vmware/configrules .
This file defines rules in a regex format to determine if a path can be accepted or not.

In this instance, the virtual machine is mapped to an ISO located at /vmbuild/GEOS46_FACTORY.iso and there is no rule in Virtual IDE Devices to allow this pattern.
To resolve the issue, edit /etc/vmware/configrules and add the following rule to the Virtual IDE Devices section, just above accept !prefix "/" :

accept prefix_case "/vmbuild/"
The virtual machine starts on the next power on.