Power on fails due to 255 or more redo logs

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0
• VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0
• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

Issue/Introduction

The VM fails to power on with message "This virtual machine has 255 or more redo logs in a single branch of its snapshot tree"

The maximum supported limit has been reached, creating new snapshots will not be allowed. To create new snapshots, please delete old snapshots or consolidate the redo logs.

The vmware logs will have messages as below

[root@esxi:/vmfs/volumes/vsan:52435xxxxxxxx663-a172xxxxxxx8ae82/186xx95f-d64d-f3f5-02e5-2xxxxxxxx9d0] cat vmware.log|less
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS] In(05) worker-2106777 - DISKLIB-LIB_BLOCKTRACK   : Resuming from change tracking info file /vmfs/volumes/vsan:52435xxxxxxxx663-a172xxxxxxx8ae82/186xx95f-d64d-f3f5-02e5-2xxxxxxxx9d0/vm.vmdk.
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS] In(05) worker-2106777 - DISKLIB-CTK   : Could not open change tracking file "/vmfs/volumes/vsan:52435xxxxxxxx663-a172xxxxxxx8ae82/186xx95f-d64d-f3f5-02e5-2xxxxxxxx9d0/vm_1-000254-ctk.vmdk": Change tracking invalid or disk in use.
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS] In(05) worker-2106777 - DISKLIB-CTK   : Change tracking invalid; reinitializing

 

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7 
VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Cause

The maximum supported limit has been reached for snapshots. 

Resolution

1. Remove the HDD  from the VM configuration that shows failure in VMware.log

2. Edit the descriptor file to remove the ctk references

root@esxi:/vmfs/volumes/vsan:52435xxxxxxxx663-a172xxxxxxx8ae82/186xx95f-d64d-f3f5-02e5-2xxxxxxxx9d0] cat vm.vmdk
# Disk DescriptorFile
version=5
encoding="UTF-8"
CID=b41c1eb9
parentCID=fe8c47c6
createType="vsanSparse"
parentFileNameHint="vm.vmdk"
# Extent description
RW 18874368000 VSANSPARSE "vsan:52435xxxxxxxx663-a172xxxxxxx8ae82/3a2c9xx6-4xx0-6xx6-1fe1-5cxxxxxxc900"

# Change Tracking File
changeTrackPath="vm-ctk.vmdk" <-------------------------- Comment out using #

# The Disk Data Base
#DDB

ddb.iofilters = "spm"
ddb.longContentID = "4a5a677a4124exxxxxx1857fb41c1eb9"
ddb.sidecars = "spm_2,vm-000254-a151xxxxxx841c0e.vmfd"

3. Power on the VM .
Note: It will take few hours to power on the VM.