Virtual machine shows invalid status due to incorrect latency sensitivity value

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• Post vmotion virtual machine fails to resume on destination ESXi host and becomes invalid.
• Attempting to un-register and re-register from vSphere and the ESXi host client also show invalid status for the virtual machine in the inventory as shown below:

ESXi host client > Virtual Machines :

• On the ESXi host logs, entries similar to below are encountered:

/var/run/log/hostd.log

YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss Db(167) Hostd[2100012]: [Originator@6876 sub=Vmsvc opID=### sid=### user=###] Registering virtual machine [150]: /vmfs/volumes/<datastore>/<vm_folder>/<vm_name>.vmx
...
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss Db(167) Hostd[2100012]: [Originator@6876 sub=Vigor.Vmsvc.vm:/vmfs/volumes/<datastore>/<vm_folder>/<vm_name>.vmx opID=### sid=### user=###] Get vigor fields VigorCpp::Devices::Sched::Shared message: Valid values: high, medium, normal, low, auto, undef or a positive number
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss Db(167) Hostd[2099986]: --> Virtual machine latency sensitivity (TRUE) is invalid.
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss Db(167) Hostd[2099986]: -->
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss In(166) Hostd[2100012]: [Originator@6876 sub=Vmsvc.vm:/vmfs/volumes/<datastore>/<vm_folder>/<vm_name>.vmx opID=### sid=### user=###] Error encountered while retrieving configuration. Marking configuration as invalid: N3Vim5Fault20GenericVmConfigFault9ExceptionE(Fault cause: vim.fault.GenericVmConfigFault)

Cause

As mentioned on the log snippet, issue is caused due to presence of an unsupported value corresponding to the parameter sched.cpu.latencySensitivity on the virtual machine's vmx configuration file, which in this case holds the value set to 'TRUE'.

The only supported values for this parameter are: high, medium, normal, low, auto, undef or a positive number

Upon restart or vmotion, when the vmx gets reloaded the ESXi host fails to power it on thereby flagging the virtual machine as invalid. 

Resolution

To resolve this edit the vmx file to manually set the parameter to any supported value as per the requirement:

• SSH to the ESXi host where the virtual machine resides using root
• Change to the location of the vmx file: 

cd /vmfs/volumes/<datastore>/<vm_folder>

• Open the vmx configuration file using vi editor

vi <vmx_name>.vmx

• Goto Insert Mode in the editor:

Press I button

• Change sched.cpu.latencySensitivity to reflect a supported value . Example: 

sched.cpu.latencySensitivity = 'normal'

• Save the file:

Press ESC and type :wq!

Reload the vmx file on the ESXi host and proceed to power it on:

• SSH to the ESXi host where the VM is registered via root
• Obtain the Inventory ID (Vmid) for the virtual machine:

vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms|grep -i <vm-name>

• Reload the .vmx file:

vim-cmd vmsvc/reload <Vmid>