Virtual machine migration fails due to EVC mode mismatch

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
After creating an EVC (Enhanced vMotion Compatibility) cluster you experience the following:

• These settings are different from the ESXi host or cluster EVC setting:
  • The EVC mode listed in the Summary tab of a virtual machine
  • The guest operating system reports a CPU model/type
• You cannot update the EVC mode on a virtual machine.
• vMotion fails for the virtual machine
• After migrating a Windows virtual machine using vMotion, the Windows guest operating system fails with a blue screen error.
• After a failed virtual machine migration, you see an entry in the virtual machine's vmware.log file similar to:
  2012-04-05T20:51:06.698Z| vmx| CPUID differences from hostCPUID

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7
VMware vCenter Server 5.5.x
VMware vCenter Server 6.5.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5
VMware vCenter Server 6.0.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0
VMware vCenter Server 6.7.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5

Cause

This issue may occur if the virtual machine was previously configured with a CPUID mask.

Warning: Unless indicated, VMware neither supports nor recommends modifying the vMotion constraints for CPU features used by applications, such as SSE3, because of the risk of application or guest operating system failure after migration.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, reset the CPUID Mask settings on the affected virtual machine.      

To Reset the CPU-ID MASK for a VM from Web-Client / HTML, follow below steps:      

1. Login to web Client using suitable credentials 
2. Power off the virtual machine
3. Right-click the virtual machine and click Edit Settings > expand CPU >  CPUID Mask > Advanced
4. Click Reset All to Default to reset the CPUID Mask
5. Click OK > OK, then power on the virtual machine
6. The virtual machine now shows the correct EVC mode

Note: If the issue persists, upgrade the virtual machine's virtual hardware to the latest version. For more information, see Upgrading a virtual machine to the latest hardware version (multiple versions)

Additional Information

• Upgrading a virtual machine to the latest hardware version (multiple versions)
• “The target host does not support the virtual machine’s current hardware requirements” error vMotioning a VM
• VMware EVC and CPU Compatibility FAQ
• Skylake EVC virtual machines fail to power on
• vCenter Server 7.0 services fails to start in an EVC enabled cluster