Error: "The operation is not supported on the object" when performing cold VM migrations after upgrading to vCenter 8.0

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• After upgrading to vSphere 8.0, cold (powered off) migrations of VMs fail
• vCenter UI may display the following error messages:
  
  vim.VirtualMachine.relocate: :vmodl.fault.NotSupported

Could not complete network copy for file /vmfs/volumes/###/<VM Name>/<VM Name>.vmdk
  
  
• Unable to copy powered off VMs 
• Both the source and destination ESXi hosts have provisioning VMKs configured
• Powered on migrations succeed as normal
• ESXi - /var/log/vmware/hostd.log may show the following log messages:
  
  [NFC ERROR]NfcTransportMigrateInit: Failed to initialize src migrate module for NFC streaming over vmkernel: Networking stack mismatch
[NFC ERROR]NfcSendFileInt: Failed to initialize migrate module: NFC_FAILED
[NFC ERROR]NfcSendFile: File send failed for file '/vmfs/volumes/##/<VM Name>/<VM NAME>.vmdk': NFC_FAILED (NFC operation failed)
File transfer [/vmfs/volumes/##/<VM Name>/<VM NAME>.vmdk -> /vmfs/volumes/##/<VM Name>/<VM NAME>.vmdk] failed:
NfcErrorCode communicated as part of fault
Error encountered while processing copy spec for file
Hostd[2099920]: --> N3Vim5Fault16NetworkCopyFault9ExceptionE(Fault cause: vim.fault.NetworkCopyFault

Environment

• vSphere 8.0 upgrade
• ESXi host with provisioning stack enabled

Cause

Cold migrations attempt to use the provisioning network if enabled; this network is not configured by default. If not configured, the management network is used instead.

In vSphere 7.0, the provisioning VMK NIC has a null value in vsish, which triggers migration failures when upgraded to vSphere 8.0.

Resolution

This issue has been resolved in vSphere 8.0 U3. 

Workaround

If upgrading to vSphere 8.0U3 is not possible, manually configure the network stack by running the following command:

vsish -e set /config/Net/strOpts/ProvisioningVmknics vmk#

Note: Replace # with the number of the provisioning vmk.