Unable to boot VM. Stuck task "poweron".

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• Powering on the virtual machine fails
• Get another process running error.
• Looking at the virtual machine folder you will see .lck file

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Cause

The virtual machine failed to power on due to a lock file. Multiple ESXi hosts had a lock on the virtual machine due to improper shutdown of the ESXi host.

Resolution

• Identified the host that has the lock on the virtual machine. (Refer to KB https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/314365/investigating-virtual-machine-file-locks.html)
• Put the host in maintenance mode to evacuate all the virtual machines running on the host.
• Put DRS in the manual on the cluster that the host is part Of.
• Reboot the host to release the lock.
• Reboot the virtual machine.

Additional Information

Verifying virtual machine lock files using KB https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/314365/investigating-virtual-machine-file-locks.html