Edit Settings pane shows blank on Virtual Machine in vSphere Client

Products

• VMware vCenter Server 7.0
• VMware vCenter Server 8.0

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Opening the Edit Settings shows the Virtual Hardware and VM Options tabs with a red exclamation mark beside them and the rest of the window is empty.
  

 

 

• Clicking on "VM Options" displays a red exclamation mark on the tab.
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• Opening edit settings via ESXi host client shows the required fields but no changes can be made via vSphere web client.
• VM Hardware version is above 9 and this KB - Edit settings window fails to load on Virtual Machines with virtual hardware version 9 or older on vCenter Server 8.0U2 does not apply.
• Ideally this issue should only occur on a windows machines  which are configured to use vmxnet.

Environment

• VMware vCenter Server 8.x

Cause

Invalid network adapter configuration in VM's vmx file causes this problem

The above setting was configured to vmxnet instead of vmxnet3.

Resolution

Take a backup of .vmx file of the impacted VM and change the "ethernet1.virtualDev" to vmxnet3 if it shows otherwise for a vmxnet3 network adapter.

OR

(Recommended) Remove the affected network adapter from the VM and re-add it.

Additional Information

Impact/Risks:
Unable to manage Virtual Machines via the vSphere Client.