A general system error occurred: DVS error: see faultCause Cannot create Distributed Port Group

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• Trying to vMotion a virtual machine from one host to another host fails.
• Virtual machines fail to power on fails.
• The following exact error message is observed in the vSphere Client:
  A general system error occurred: DVS error: see faultCause Cannot create Distributed Port Group dvportgroup-<ID> of VDS <DVSname> on the host <hostname> Cause: Cannot complete a vSphere Distributed Switch operation for one or more host members.
• The following error observed as a warning under vDS in the vCenter UI:
  "The vSphere Distributed Switch configuration on some hosts differed from that of the vCenter Server."

Cause

The ESXi host is out of sync with the vCenter Server vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS) configuration or is experiencing an issue preventing it from correctly attaching to the vDS.

 

Resolution

To resolve this issue, the affected ESXi host must be removed and re-added to the vDS to force a resynchronization of the network state. Follow Detailed Steps to remove and re-add the ESXi host to the vDS to resolve the issue.

Additional Information

ESXi hosts showing out of sync with distributed switch