Stale datastore entry for a virtual machine on the Summary tab

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• You see a stale datastore entry for a virtual machine on the Summary tab.
• Virtual machine is using only one datastore, still the stale datastore is displayed.
• There are no virtual machine files on the stale datastore.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7
VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0
VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

Cause

This issue occurs when an ISO/DVD is inadvertently mounted or left behind from a vmotioned snapshot.

Resolution

Verify that there are no files on this datastore that references this virtual machine:

• Right-click the datastore, browse Datastore and check if there are any files for that virtual machine.
• Right-click the VM, click Edit Settings, check if any hard disk is residing on that datastore.

 

After verifying:

 

1. Right-click the VM, click Edit Settings > CD/DVD Drive. If the Datastore ISO is checked, verify if the path is on the stale entry datastore. If yes, then uncheck that option and click OK.
2. Right-click VM, click Snapshot > Snapshot Manager. If there are any snapshots, consolidate (Delete all) those snapshots. When a VM with snapshots is storage vMotioned there are chances of the old datastore entry being left behind. Upon consolidation of these snapshots the stale entry is removed.

Additional Information