Virtual machine creation or power on fails on vSAN Cluster with Error - Invalid virtual machine configuration. Object policy is not compatible with datastore space efficiency policy configured on the cluster

Products

• VMware vSAN

Issue/Introduction

• vSAN cluster is configured with vSAN Default Storage Policy, This policy has Space Efficiency set to Deduplication and Compression (D&C).
  
  
  
  

• VMs associated with vSAN default Storage policy are marked as "Out of Date".

• The vSAN default Storage policy was displaying as incompatible with the vSAN datastore at the time of VM creation failure.

• When attempting to power on VM you will see errors creating vSWAP object.

  

Environment

VMware vSAN 7.x
VMware vSAN 8.x

Cause

• The applied vSAN Storage Policy's or the datastore's default policy's Space efficiency setting is set to "Compression only" or "Deduplication and compression".

• Due to this, when creating an object in a vSAN Standard cluster with Space efficiency policy set to "Compression only" or "Deduplication and compression", the object creation will fail with "Invalid virtual machine configuration. Object policy is not compatible with datastore space efficiency policy configured on the cluster" error message.

• This can be verified in the vpxd.log and clomd.log, the relevant error messages confirms issue related to space efficiency policy :
  
  

  ####-##-##T##:##:##.###+##:## warning vpxd[08035] [Originator@6876 sub=Vmomi opID=mck6abvq-699520-auto-ezr5-h5:70301364-58] VMOMI activation LRO failed; <<########-####-####-####-f7d35194d1a6, <TCP '127.#.#.# :
  ####'>, <TCP '127.#.#.# : 57318'>>, group-v4, vim.Folder.createVm>, N3Vim5Fault16CannotCreateFile9ExceptionE(Fault cause: vim.fault.CannotCreateFile
  --> )
  --> [context]########[/context]
  2025-07-09T15:16:29.024+05:30 info vpxd[08035] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=mck6abvq-699520-auto-ezr5-h5:70301364-58] [VpxLRO] -- FINISH task-873685
  2025-07-09T15:16:29.025+05:30 info vpxd[08035] [Originator@6876 sub=Default opID=mck6abvq-699520-auto-ezr5-h5:70301364-58] [VpxLRO] -- ERROR task-873685 -- group-v4 -- vim.Folder.createVm: vim.fault.CannotCreate
   key = "vob.vsanprovider.object.creation.failed",
  arg = <unset>,
  message = "Failed to create object."
  (vmodl.LocalizableMessage) {
  key = "vob.vsan.clomd.incompatibleDatastoreSpaceEfficiency",
  -arg = <unset>,
  message = "Object policy is not compatible with datastore space efficiency policy configured on the cluster"

  
  
  

Resolution

• To resolve this issue change the vSAN Storage policy's Space Efficiency parameter to  "No preference".

• Navigate to vSphere Client > Menu > Policies and Profiles > VM Storage Policies > Select the Policy to be updated > Edit:

As a result, the chosen datastore will be used by default for space efficiency.

     Note:

1. If this change is made on a Storage Policy which is already applied to VMs, it can cause resync to occur, which can potentially impact performance. Recommended to clone the existing policy and make the above changes to the cloned policy, post which the cloned Policy can be applied to VMs in batches.
   
   
2. The issue is only experienced when the vSAN cluster is not configured with space efficiency attributes (Deduplication/Compression) and the policy has "Compression only" or "Deduplication and compression" set.

• If the vCenter server Virtual Machine is unable to be powered on due to this issue, submit a case with Broadcom Support.