Virtual Machine become orphaned after a timed-out failed delete operation

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• A number of deletion tasks initiated from the vCenter failing with the following error:
  
  Operation timed out.
  
  
  
  
• Following the timed out operation vCenter mark the VMs as "orphaned"

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 7.x
VMware vCenter Server 8.x

Cause

The default timeouts in vCenter may not be long enough for certain operations.

Resolution

As a workaround to address the issue increase the default vCenter timeout settings following the resolution steps from KB article 310967

Additional Information

Extending the default timeout periods for vCenter Server, ESX/ESXi hosts, and vCenter Update Manager