Warning "Objects are in inaccessible in vSAN" while performing vSAN on-disk upgrade

Products

• VMware vSAN

Issue/Introduction

vSAN on-disk upgrade may fail due to inaccessible objects in vSAN cluster 

When starting the upgrade, we get the error:

Found vSAN on disk format upgrade preflight check issue:Object(s) xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxx7c are inaccessible in vSAN.. Pre-check of the update completed but an error was found. See checklist for detail.

Environment

VMware vSphere 6.x

VMware vSphere 7.X

VMware vSphere 8.x

Cause

Due to inaccessible objects in the vSAN cluster it was not allowed to proceed with ESXi upgrade and vSAN on disk upgrade. 

Resolution

Identify, understand and check for the cause for the inaccessible objects and duration since when we have inaccessible objects on vSAN cluster. 

If the inaccessible object/s are identified and confirmed as vswp (VM Swap file) object, we can use the vCenter UI and under vSAN skyline health for data health, we can use the button "Purge inaccessible VM Swap Objects". This option would detect all the vswp objects and give you an option to purge them. These inaccessible VM Swap Objects can be removed without risk by clicking "Purge inaccessible VM Swap Objects

1.  Use below article and purge inaccessible object from UI. 

vSAN Health Service - Data Health – vSAN Object Health

2. If its failing to purge from UI follow below steps.

3. You can use the below command to list the inaccessible objects on the vSAN cluster.

esxcli vsan debug object list --health=inaccessible --> collect the uuid of inaccessible object

4. To get attributes for the inaccessible object using objtool getAttr command

/usr/lib/vmware/osfs/bin/objtool getAttr -u 30d1315a-07e2-195d-3cb9-##########

root@localhost:~] /usr/lib/vmware/osfs/bin/objtool getAttr -u #######-ba57-a300-5023-##########
Object Attributes --

UUID:ca6ad966-####-####-####-##########
Object type:vsan
Object size:1099511627776
Policy:((\"stripeWidth\" i1) (\"cacheReservation\" i0) (\"proportionalCapacity\" i0) (\"hostFailuresToTolerate\" i1) (\"forceProvisioning\" i0) (\"spbmProfileId\" \"aa6d5a82-1c88-45da-85d3-3d74b91a5bad\") (\"spbmProfileGenerationNumber\" l+0) (\"spbmProfileName\" \"vSAN Default Storage Policy\"))
Object class:vswp ------------> object class for vswp.
Object capabilities:NONE
Object path:/vmfs/volumes/vsan:521f1b6ef9bb4795-ddac1c6b06d959ed/c96ad966-6e10-7ba3-14ad-##########/VirtualMachine.####
Group uuid:c96ad966-6e10-7ba3-14ad-##########
Container uuid:(null)
IsSparse:0
Allocation type:Thin
Allocated size:784594894848
[root@localhost:~]

 

Assistance on cleanup and Recovery of inaccessible objects.

For further assistance on either cleanup of inaccessible object or possibility of object recovery (if required), please contact Broadcom Support to investigate the issue.