vswp objects in inaccessible state

Products

• VMware vSAN

Issue/Introduction

• The vSAN Skyline Health dashboard displays an alarm for vSAN Object Health - Inaccessible objects.

• Clicking VIEW DETAILS shows inaccessible objects with the status Unknown and Type as Other.

Environment

VMware vSAN 7.x
VMware vSAN 8.x

Cause

Inaccessible vswp objects are typically the result of a transient failure within the vSAN cluster that interrupted the normal lifecycle of a virtual machine's swap file. These objects are temporary and are generated when VMs are powered on.

Common causes include:

• Hosts being placed in Maintenance Mode or undergoing decommissioning.
• Failed disks or disk groups.
• Network partitions between cluster nodes.
• Inconsistent states following a vSAN cluster shutdown or restart.

Note: These objects are non-critical, do not impact running virtual machines, and are automatically recreated when a VM is powered on.

 

Resolution

If only vswp objects are in an inaccessible state, follow these steps to remove them from the inventory:

1. Log in to the vCenter UI.
2. Navigate to the affected vSAN Cluster.
3. Select the Monitor tab and go to Skyline Health.
4. Locate the vSAN Object Health finding.
5. Click the Purge inaccessible objects button to clear the stale swap objects.

⚠️ Review the following commands with your administrator before running them.

To verify inaccessible objects via CLI, run the following command on an affected ESXi host:

esxcli vsan debug object list --health=inaccessible

 

If the steps outlined above fail to remove the inaccessible vswp object, a safe alternative method is to use the Ruby vSphere Console (RVC)

To purge inaccessible virtual machine swap (.vswp) objects from a vSAN datastore using the Ruby vSphere Console (RVC), execute the steps below. This process removes stranded vswap objects that the management plane flags as inaccessible and are no longer backed by active virtual machine processes.

1. Establish an SSH session to the vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA).

2. Authenticate and launch the RVC utility using local SSO administrator credentials: rvc [email protected]@localhost

3. Navigate the RVC namespace to locate the target vSAN cluster. For example: cd /localhost/<Datacenter_Name>/computers/

4. Execute the purge command against the specific vSAN cluster. Replace <Cluster_Name> with the actual cluster object name: vsan.purge_inaccessible_vswp_objects <Cluster_Name>

5. RVC will prompt for confirmation before permanently deleting the inaccessible swap objects. Review the objects listed and input y to confirm the deletion.

6. Refresh the vSAN state to verify the inventory correctly reflects the purged objects: vsan.check_state -r <Cluster_Name>

 

If the Purge inaccessible objects option does not resolve the alarm, contact Broadcom Support for further assistance.

Additional Information

vSAN Health Service - Data Health – vSAN Object Health