Due to power outage the host was rebooted and powering on virtual machine appears as skipped unknown

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article provided steps to recover and power on a virtual machine through the ESXi host after a power outage is restored and the virtual machines are shown in an skipped unknown.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x

Cause

• The virtual machine is in an unknown state in the host UI.
• The power-on button in the host UI for the virtual machines is grayed out.
• When ssh to hosts and runs # vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms , the affected virtual machine is listed as "skipped unknown."
• You are not able to power on the virtual machines through the command line or using the host UI

Resolution

• Verify the storage path that the virtual machines are residing on and take note.
• Remove the unknown virtual machines from inventory (Unregister)
• SSH to the ESXi host on which the virtual machine was running.
• Identify the datastore and browse the directory for the affected virtual machine.vmx file
• Use the solo registervm command to reload the machine.vmx file Refer to Add or Register a Virtual Machine (VM) in vCenter Server
• Obtain the VM's VM ID by running vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms  and looking at the leftmost column.
  Run the command:
  # vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms | grep <vm_name>
• Power on the virtual machine

NB:  If vCenter is also part of affected VM's we can use the host UI/SSH

Additional Information

How to add a virtual machine to the vCenter Server inventory through the ESXi host Add or Register a Virtual Machine (VM) in vCenter Server