Unable to power on the clustered VMDKs shared when ctk is enabled.

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

In a shared clustered VMDK environment, VMs encounter an issue where they fail to power on due to the inability to enable both changed block tracking (CBT) and multi-writer sharing simultaneously. 

Symptoms:

In the /var/log/hostd.log file, you see the entries like:

2024-06-10T00:33:01.119Z verbose hostd[2100165] [Originator@6876 sub=Vigor.Vmsvc.vm:/vmfs/volumes/62bb1fc1-957bd9f6-2571-6805cad10c18/SDC-SHP-DB01-DS-9f2d/SDC-SHP-DB01-DS-9f2d.vmx opID=vcd-9213b3d8-ef78-49c4-bb78-4d63daa7f715;activity=ur
n:uuid:7d2220c6-9c77-48ce-a2b5-2504b7e4a751-3a-01-01-01-01-80-91c3] Power On message: Cannot enable changed block tracking and multi-writer sharing at the same time.
 One of the parameters supplied is invalid
 Cannot open the disk '/vmfs/volumes/62bb205b-4cd37b6c-3945-6805cad10c18/SDC-SHP-DB-QD (42656f37-8013-4b7a-8556-ebb21258e1d0)/SDC-SHP-DB-QD (42656f37-8013-4b7a-8556-ebb21258e1d0).vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.
Module 'Disk' power on failed.
Cannot enable changed block tracking and multi-writer sharing at the same time.
One of the parameters supplied is invalid
Cannot open the disk '/vmfs/volumes/62bb205b-4cd37b6c-3945-6805cad10c18/SDC-SHP-DB-DS3 (e738e87a-e48f-444a-8731-8bb90c2c981a)/SDC-SHP-DB-DS3 (e738e87a-e48f-444a-8731-8bb90c2c981a).vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.
Cannot enable changed block tracking and multi-writer sharing at the same time.
One of the parameters supplied is invalid
Cannot open the disk '/vmfs/volumes/62bb205b-4cd37b6c-3945-6805cad10c18/SDC-SHP-DB-DS2 (03158a93-29dc-4cb1-9185-9fa62aeaec54)/SDC-SHP-DB-DS2 (03158a93-29dc-4cb1-9185-9fa62aeaec54).vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.
Failed to start the virtual machine

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0

Cause

A VMFS Clustered VMDK is a virtual disk shared between two clustered VMs across multiple ESX hosts. It operates in multi-writer mode. Therefore it does not support Change Tracking (CTK)

Resolution

ctk's needs to be disabled for the clustered vmdk VM’s.

Additional Information

Limitations of Clustered VMDK support for WSFC