Unable to Power on VM when IOFilters is enabled.

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
Unable to power on the vm
Snapshot consolidation

Generic error message: Cannot open the disk '/vmfs/volumes/XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX/VMNAME-XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX/VMNAME-XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX-000001.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0

Cause

Due to third party IO filter enabled at the virtual machine, which acts like an flash driver to the virtual machine when the customer are using migrating there vm to the cloud or to an other data center.

One of the example for the IO filter is Jetstream.

Resolution

- Hash out the following parameters: ddb.sidecars and ddb.iofilter from the descriptor and the snapshot descriptor files for the affected vmdk.

Sample  VMDK:

# Disk DescriptorFile
version=5
encoding="UTF-8"
CID=3018dd88
parentCID=ffffffff
isNativeSnapshot="no"
createType="vmfs"

# Extent description
RW 209715200 VMFS "VMNAME-XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX-flat.vmdk"

# Change Tracking File
changeTrackPath="VMNAME-XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX-ctk.vmdk"

# The Disk Data Base
#DDB

ddb.adapterType = "lsilogic"
ddb.deletable = "true"
ddb.encoding = "UTF-8"
ddb.geometry.biosCylinders = "13054"
ddb.geometry.biosHeads = "255"
ddb.geometry.biosSectors = "63"
ddb.geometry.cylinders = "13054"
ddb.geometry.heads = "255"
ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"
#ddb.iofilters = "jetaccel"
ddb.longContentID = "96799446337cbb3c59a5c7ab3018dd88"
#ddb.sidecars = "jetaccel_1,VMNAME-########-####-####-####-############-################.vmfd"
ddb.toolsInstallType = "2"
ddb.toolsVersion = "10282"
ddb.uuid = "60 00 C2 99 c0 a2 87 80-c2 1d 3d 68 3b f1 d3 1e"
ddb.virtualHWVersion = "11"

- Create the temp folder and move all the .vmfd files.
- Reloaded the vmx file ,successfully power on the VM and consolidated the vm.


Workaround:
The above resolution is manually editing the storage policy of the VM at the ESxi host level.
Recommendation shared by Jetstream
Unregister and register the vm from the vcenter by performing the action vCenter will learn the storage policy attached to the vm.