VM fails to power on with stale handle error if .vmx file is recreated during restore.

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

In certain scenarios, after restoring a virtual machine from backup, the VM might fail to power on.
This occurs when the .vmx file is deleted and recreated in the backend while the ESXi host is still holding the handle to the old .vmx file.
The issue is commonly seen on NFS v4.1 datastores.

• VM fails to power on after a restore operation

• Errors similar to the following might be observed in the vSphere Client or VM logs:

  • "Stale handle"

  • "Could not open virtual machine configuration file"

• The issue occurs only when the .vmx file is deleted and recreated during restore.

 

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0
NFS v4.1 datastores

Cause

The ESXi nfs41client continues to access a stale file handle of the old .vmx file after it is deleted and recreated by external applications.
When ESXi attempts to power on the VM using this stale handle, the operation fails.

Resolution

This issue is resolved in VMware ESXi 8.0 Update 3g.