VMware ESXi vVOL NVMe over Fiber Channel- VM operations on vVOLs failing

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms: 

• Operations on Virtual Machines that use vSphere vVOLs, such as vMotions, Storage vMotion, Cross-site vMotions, snapshot creation, VM cloning/Template deployment intermittently fail. 
• You may see error in the hostd.log similar to:

YYYY-MM-DDT20:19:58.598Z Wa(164) Hostd[2098853]: [Originator@6876 sub=Vmsvc opID=m2j85x7m-15627422-auto-9ay73-h5:70758138-ae-02-1d-01-f2-004c sid=52b539c2 user=vpxuser:<no user>] RegisterVm file check error: Unable to stat VM config file '/vmfs/volumes/vvol:aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb/rfc4122.aaaaaaaa-bbbb-cccc-dddd-eeeeeeeeeeee/TestVM.vmx'. Error code 6: 'No such device or address'

• The affected Virtual Machines are stored on NVMe over Fiber Channel (NVMeoFC) based vVOLs. 
• You are using a NetApp SAN with ONTAP 9.11 or higher

Environment

• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Cause

• The VASA Provider is intermittently returning an incorrect bind response. 

Resolution

• This is being investigated by NetApp. Please contact NetApp Support for further information.

Additional Information

• NOTE:  Standard Fiber Channel or iSCSI based vVOLS are not impacted. This issue affects only VMs stored on NVMeoFC based vVOLs.