Clone or deploy from template with hardware customize failed by the error "Number of virtual devices exceeds the maximum for a given controller"

Products

• VMware vCenter Server 8.0

Issue/Introduction

• When deploying from a clone or template while customizing hardware, the process may fail with the following error: "Number of virtual devices exceeds the maximum for a given controller."
• In the virtual machine clone wizard, after editing the virtual machine's hardware and then returning to a previous step, some virtual machine configuration items are marked with an asterisk (*).
• vpxd.log shows that a USB controller is added in failed clone task.
  

  [timestamp] error vpxd[06206] [Originator@6876 sub=Default opID=######] [VpxLRO] -- ERROR task-#### -- ####(####) -- vm-2009 -- vim.VirtualMachine.clone: :vim.fault.TooManyDevices
  --> Result:
  --> (vim.fault.TooManyDevices) {
  -->    faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
  -->    faultMessage = <unset>,
  -->    property = <unset>
  -->    msg = "Number of virtual devices exceeds the maximum for a given controller."
  --> }
  --> Args:
  
  ...
  
  -->          (vim.vm.device.VirtualDeviceSpec) {
  -->             operation = "add",
  -->             fileOperation = <unset>,
  -->             device = (vim.vm.device.VirtualUSBXHCIController) {

Cause

When moving back and forth, some devices are marked as * and then are added to the clone specification by mistake, causing the clone task to fail with errors for too many devices.
Specifically, this leads to clone failures because only one USB controller can be configured per virtual machine.

Resolution

Broadcom is aware of this issue and the fix is planned for vCenter Server 9.1.
Workaround is to avoid going back to previous steps in the clone wizard.