vMotion Virtual machine fails with error "Copy protection disallowed starting this virtual appliance on this system".

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• vMotion of Windows Virtual machine fails with error: "An error occurred restoring the virtual machine state during migration. Copy protection disallowed starting this virtual appliance on this system. Please consult appliance manual for details. Failed to receive migration." when migrating across different ESXi host hardware model.
  
  
• EVC is enabled on the cluster.
  
  
• Virtual machines have below entry added in their configuration file for Windows Activation:
  acpi.passthru.slic = "TRUE"
  
  

• We see below error snippets in /var/run/log/hostd.log:

  yyyy-mm-dd In(166) Hostd[525653]: [Originator@6876 sub=Vcsvc.VMotionDst.6913070167974350453] ResolveCb: Failed with fault: (vim.fault.GenericVmConfigFault) { 
yyyy-mm-dd In(166) Hostd[525616]: -->    faultMessage = (vmodl.LocalizableMessage) [ 
yyyy-mm-dd In(166) Hostd[525616]: -->       (vmodl.LocalizableMessage) { 
yyyy-mm-dd In(166) Hostd[525616]: -->          key = "msg.checkpoint.migration.failedReceive", 
yyyy-mm-dd In(166) Hostd[525616]: -->          message = "Failed to receive migration. 
yyyy-mm-dd In(166) Hostd[525616]: --> ", 
yyyy-mm-dd In(166) Hostd[525616]: -->       }, 
yyyy-mm-dd In(166) Hostd[525616]: -->       (vmodl.LocalizableMessage) { 
yyyy-mm-dd In(166) Hostd[525616]: -->          key = "msg.acpi.secure.notOnHost", 
yyyy-mm-dd In(166) Hostd[525616]: -->          message = "Copy protection disallowed starting this virtual appliance on this system.  Please consult appliance manual for details. 

• We see below error snippet in vmware.log:

  yyyy-mm-dd In(05) vmx - restoring ACPI 
yyyy-mm-dd In(05) vmx - Progress 0% (none) 
yyyy-mm-dd In(05) vmx - Progress 101% (none) 
yyyy-mm-dd In(05) vmx - MigrateSetStateFinished: type=2 new state=MIGRATE_FROM_VMX_FINISHED 
yyyy-mm-dd In(05) vmx - MigrateSetState: Transitioning from state MIGRATE_FROM_VMX_CHECKPT (11) to MIGRATE_FROM_VMX_FINISHED (12). 
yyyy-mm-dd In(05) vmx - Migrate: Caching migration error message list: 
yyyy-mm-dd In(05) vmx - [msg.checkpoint.migration.failedReceive] Failed to receive migration. 
yyyy-mm-dd In(05) vmx - [msg.acpi.secure.notOnHost] Copy protection disallowed starting this virtual appliance on this system.  Please consult appliance manual for details. 
yyyy-mm-dd In(05) vmx - [msg.checkpoint.mrestoregroup.failed] An error occurred restoring the virtual machine state during migration. 
yyyy-mm-dd In(05) vmx - Msg_Post: Error 
yyyy-mm-dd In(05) vmx - [msg.checkpoint.mrestoregroup.failed] An error occurred restoring the virtual machine state during migration. 
yyyy-mm-dd In(05) vmx - [msg.acpi.secure.notOnHost] Copy protection disallowed starting this virtual appliance on this system.  Please consult appliance manual for details.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Resolution

A virtual machine configured with acpi.passthru.slic = "TRUE" can only run on a host system that is identical to the one on which it was originally powered on. This is because it references the SLIC (Software Licensing Description Table) of the host system. During live migration, if the destination host has a different SLIC table, the VM fails to match it and cannot complete the transition in a powered-on state.

This behavior explains scenarios where live migration fails between hosts with differing SLIC tables. To ensure successful migration, the source and destination hosts must have matching SLIC configurations.

For more information on SLIC Table, kindly reach out to Dell Support.

Additional Information

• Dell provides SLIC table in their firmware.
• You will have SLIC table only if you buy Windows with system.
• Details on SLIC: What Is a SLIC BIOS Entry?