vMotion validation fails with the error: Unable to access file

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

This article provides steps in resolving vMotion validation errors for virtual machines stored on a NFS datastore.

Symptoms:

• Cannot validate vMotion.
• vMotion validation fails.
• You see the error:

Unable to access file [datastore_name]vm_name/vm_name.vmx
Virtual disk 'Hard Disk 1' is not accessible on the Host: Unable to access file[datastore_name]vm_name/vm_name.vmdk

Notes:

• This occurs on virtual machines with the disks on a SAN datastore.
• Datastores are mounted across all the hosts in the cluster.

Environment

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

Cause

This issue can occur if the datastore has become unmounted from the host. The datastore will appear as 0B in the host datastore browser

Resolution

To resolve this issue, re-mount the datastore on the destination host

To mount the datastore on the destination host

1. Log into the vSphere web client
2. Select the datastore tab
3. right-click the datastore and select mount
4. the destination host should appear as an available host in the list