Storage vMotion failing with error "Migration considered a failure by the VMX"

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Storage vMotion fails with the following error:

"Disconnected from virtual machine. vMotion migration failed to read stream keepalive: Connection closed by remote host, possibly due to timeout. Failed to establish transport connection. " 

You may see errors similar to: 

/var/run/log/vmkernel.log

024-08-19T16:15:05.408Z cpu84:14042316)Migrate: 102: 1251182767594462741 D: MigrateState: Failed
2024-08-19T16:15:05.408Z cpu84:14042316)WARNING: Migrate: 256: 1251182767594462741 D: Failed: Connection closed by remote host, possibly due to timeout (c) @0x4200139b4d56
2024-08-19T16:15:05.408Z cpu84:14042316)WARNING: VMotionSend: 733: 1251182767594462741 D: (9-0x466ec0001d68) failed to receive 36/36 bytes from the remote host <host_ip>: Connection closed by remote host, possibly due to timeout
2024-08-19T16:15:05.418Z cpu20:14042296)WARNING: Migrate: 6460: 1251182767594462741 D: Migration considered a failure by the VMX. It is most likely a timeout, but check the VMX log for the true error.
2024-08-19T16:15:05.418Z cpu20:14042296)Hbr: 3815: Migration end received (worldID=14042297) (migrateType=1) (event=1) (isSource=0) (sharedConfig=1)

Environment

VMware vSphere 7.x

VMware vSphere 8.x

 

Cause

If the BIOS UUID's last 4 bytes are all 0xFF, we end up generating a CID of -1 which can cause errors with storage vMotion. 

Resolution

1. Shut down the VM.
2. Remove both the entries (below) from the VM's .vmx config file.

uuid.bios = "ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff-ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff"
vmci0.id = "-1"

3. Power on the VM.
4. After step 3, proper values for both should be generated.
5. Re-try storage vMotion .