Unable to power on cloned virtual machine with error: "File system specific implementation of LookupAndOpen[file] failed"

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Unable to power on a cloned VM
• You see the error:

Error: File system specific implementation of LookupAndOpen[file] failed.

• In the vmware.log file, you see similar to:

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS| vmx| I125+ File system specific implementation of LookupAndOpen[file] failed

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS| vmx| I125+ Failed to lock the file 2020-12-22T19:22:14.715Z| vmx| I125+ Cannot open the disk '/vmfs/volumes/xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx/originalVMname/originalVMdisk.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS| vmx| I125+ Module 'Disk' power on failed.

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS| vmx| I125+ Failed to start the virtual machine.

• The disk which cannot be opened is the original VM disk not the cloned VM disk.
• The VM configuration file (.vmx) is pointing to the original VM disk. Can also be checked in the VM setting from vCenter or ESXi UI.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.0
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7

Cause

The Error: File system specific implementation of LookupAndOpen[file] failed error occurs due to a cloned VM configuration file (.vmx) does not point to the cloned disk, instead it's pointing to the original VM disk.

Resolution

To resolve the Error: File system specific implementation of LookupAndOpen[file] failed issue edit the VM configuration to point to the cloned disk.

• From vCenter/ESXi UI
  • Right click the cloned VM and select edit settings.
  • Remove the original VM disk. (Do not select delete from disk).
  • In the same VM settings window click Add new device and select Existing hard disk.
  • Navigate to the cloned VM folder and select the proper disk.
  • Click OK to save the new settings and
  • power on the VM.
• From ESXi CLI
  • Connect the ESXi host over SSH.
  • Find the cloned VM folder directory using the below command.
  • find -iname vmname
  • Change directory to the resulted path using cd command.
  • List the files in this directory using ls command and note the .vmdk file name.
  • Take a backup from the .vmx file.
  • cp vmname.vmx vmname.vmx.old
  • Open the .vmx file in text editor using vi command and press i for insert.
  • Edit the respective line where you can see the old VM disk and change the value to the new disk directory. It will look like:
  • scsix:x.filename = "/vmfs/volumes/datastorename/vmfolder/vmdisk.vmdk"
  • Save the file  
  • Power on the VM.

Additional Information

 

• "File system specific implementation of Ioctl[file] failed" error powering on a virtual machine

 

• Failed to power on virtual machine