Unable to power on a virtual machine after an incomplete Storage vMotion

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Cannot power on the virtual machine
• Powering on the virtual machine fails
• In the vSphere Client, you see the error:
  
  This VM might be from an incomplete Storage vMotion migration. The source VM might still be registered in your vCenter Server inventory. Power on that VM instead.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware vCenter Server 4.1.x
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Embedded
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1
VMware vCenter Server 5.5.x
VMware vCenter Server 5.1.x
VMware ESX 4.1.x
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5
VMware vCenter Server 5.0.x

Cause

This issue occurs if a Storage vMotion of the virtual machine had earlier failed because the .vmx file failed or the host rebooted during the Storage vMotion.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, locate and remove the entry migration.vmxDisabled = "TRUE".

To locate and remove the entry migration.vmxDisabled = "TRUE":

1. Connect to the ESX/ESXi host on which the virtual machine is registered using the SSH client.
2. Browse to the datastore and locate the the .vmx file of the virtual machine.
3. Back up the .vmx file before making any changes.
4. Open the .vmx file using a text editor.
5. Locate and remove this entry:
   
   migration.vmxDisabled = "TRUE"
   
   
6. Save and close the file.