Starting a virtual machine from the command line on VMDK file/files fails with the error: Bad address
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Article ID: 343633
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Updated On:
Products
VMware vSphere ESXi
Issue/Introduction
Symptoms:
A virtual machine fails to start and stops at 95%.
Globally, the same virtual machine cannot be started.
If you start the virtual machine from the command line using the vmware-cmd full_Path_to_VMX_file start or vim-cmd vmsvc/power.on vmid command, you see errors similar to:
Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/vmware-cmd", line 93, in ? main() File "/usr/bin/vmware-cmd", line 65, in main result = TaskManager().HandleIfTask(result, async=False) File "/usr/lib/vmware/vmware-cmd/TaskManager.py", line 17, in HandleIfTask else: return self.WaitForTask(task) File "/usr/lib/vmware/vmware-cmd/TaskManager.py", line 28, in WaitForTask result = task.WaitForCompletion() File "/usr/lib/vmware/vmware-cmd/Task.py", line 20, in WaitForCompletion onProgressUpdate=self.OnProgressUpdate) File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/pyVim/task.py", line 120, in WaitForTask raise task.info.error pyVmomi.VmomiSupport.vim.fault.GenericVmConfigFault: (vim.fault.GenericVmConfigFault) { dynamicType = <unset>, dynamicProperty = (vmodl.DynamicProperty) [], msg = 'Reason: Bad address.', faultCause = <unset>, faultMessage = (vmodl.LocalizableMessage) [], reason = 'Reason: Bad address.', messageInfo = (vim.vm.Message) [] }
Running the file * command in the virtual machine directory (/volumes/vmfs/vm_name) reports errors similar to:
The cannot read (Bad address) errors indicate issues with accessing storage, or this issue could be due to a corrupted VMFS volume or represent a hardware issue.
Resolution
To resolve this issue, check the status of the VMFS volume and the corresponding storage or check the status of the block linked to the VMDK file.
To check the status of the VMFS volume and corresponding storage:
Perform storage diagnostics by running the command:
vmkfstools -P VMFS_volume
For example:
# vmkfstools -P ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
VMFS-3.46 file system spanning 2 partitions. File system label (if any): ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ Mode: public Capacity 7476464320512 (891264 file blocks * 8388608), 31524388864 (3758 blocks) avail UUID: 4d77bfcd-44b73914-xxxx-0026b98c5ccf Partitions spanned (on "lvm"): naa.6090a098f09affdc7xxxx401000000af:1 naa.6090a098f09a6fe77bxxxx010000a099:1 (One or more partitions spanned by this volume may be offline)
Or
A second approach is to check the status of the block linked to the VMDK file. To do so, use the command [vmkfstools -p0] if the issue is oriented to a physical storage issue.
The same issues appear with missing extents; the issues are displayed in RED: