Power on failure on VM with error: "No host is compatible with the virtual machine"

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptom:

• Power on failure prompt with error "No host is compatible with the virtual machine" is seen for the VM.
• Error listed for hard disks attached to the VM "Virtual disk <hard disk> is a mapped direct-access LUN that is not accessible. In order to proceed with the operation, the target disk's datastore and format must be different than that of the source disk."

Validation:

• Select VM > Right click > select "Edit Settings", to check the status of the VM hard disks.
  
  
  
  

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Cause

• LUNs are  removed from the storage side. In '/var/run/log/vobd.log', you will see below event -
  
  2025-04-10T22:08:10.705Z In(14) vobd[2097812]:  [scsiCorrelator] 2382641706221us: [esx.problem.scsi.device.state.permanentloss.noopens] Permanently inaccessible device: naa.################################ has no more opens. It is now safe to unmount datastores (if any): Unknown and delete the device
  
  

Resolution

• Represent the LUN from the storage side with the same LUN name and LUN ID.
  
  
• Reload the VM using "vim-cmd vmsvc/reload <Vmid>".
  Refer - Reloading a vmx file without removing the virtual machine from inventory
  
  
• VM can be powered on now.