Powering on a virtual machine fails with the error: memoryAllocation.reservation

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• When vSphere Client is connected to the vCenter Server, virtual machines in a DRS cluster (with admission control disabled) may fail to power on
• You see the error:
  
  A specified parameter was not correct. memoryAllocation.reservation
   
• The hostd logs contain entries similar to:
  
  [ResPoolAlgo] Checking admissibility of VM id: vm-12345, name: <VM_name> under respool
  id: resgroup-23456, name: Resources
  [VpxLRO] -- ERROR task-42920 -- vm-12345-- Drm.ExecuteVmPowerOnLRO:
  vmodl.fault.InvalidArgument: (vmodl.fault.InvalidArgument) {
  dynamicType = <unset>,
  invalidProperty = "memoryAllocation.reservation",
  msg = ""
  }

Environment

VMware ESXi 4.0.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Installable
VMware ESX 4.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 4.0.x
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable
VMware vCenter Server 4.1.x
VMware ESX 4.1.x
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Embedded
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware vCenter Server 5.0.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1
VMware vCenter Server 5.1.x
VMware vCenter Server 5.5.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5
VMware vCenter Server 6.x
VMware ESXi 6.x
VMware vCenter Server 7.x
VMware ESXi 7.x
VMware vCenter Server 8.x
VMware ESXi 8.x

 

Resolution

This can occur if any one of the virtual machines in the cluster has a memory reservation that is greater than the memory limit set on that same virtual machine.

 

To resolve this issue, check the memory reservations and memory limits for all virtual machines in the cluster to ensure that no virtual machine in the cluster has a memory reservation that is greater than its memory limit. For a general guide to determine your overhead memory requirements, see the vSphere Resource Management Guide.

Alternatively, you can work around this issue by disabling DRS. This allows virtual machines to power up successfully. For more information, see Disabling VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (1007655).

Note: Disabling DRS removes all the resource pools in the cluster. It also disables DPM. VMware recommends that you bring all hosts out of standby before disabling the DRS feature. For information on retaining resource pools, see Retaining resource pools when disabling VMware DRS clusters in the vSphere Web Client.

 

Additional Information

For related information, see Powering on a virtual machine fails with the error: Admission check failed for memory resource. 
Failed to power on virtual machine