VMs inaccessible after unexpected power outage in a non-vSAN environment.

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

VMs on specific LUN or LUNs show up in vSphere inventory as 'inaccessible' after unexpected or unmanaged power outage.

Environment

VMs in question on 3rd party storage array and not on vSAN.

Cause

Disconnection between storage and ESXi hosts on which the VMs were running can cause the VMs to run in memory even if their structural files are corrupted.

Power outage can reveal hidden issues with the VM files residing on affected LUNs.

Resolution

Step 1: Re-register VM to vSphere inventory

     a. Right-click the VM entry in question under "Hosts and Clusters".

     b. Re-add the .vmx file of the removed VM from the "Datastores" menu.

     c. If the VM still shows up as 'inaccessible' in inventory, proceed to Step 2.

Step 2: Check the files for locks

     a. Run touch * in the VM's directory

     b. If any critical files (.vmx or .vmdk) return "device or resource busy" or "I/O Error detected" follow the procedure in the article below:

https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/323140/device-or-resource-busy-file-is-locked-e.html

 

Additional Information

If any VMs in the environment do not return issues with the files but still can't be powered-on, follow the steps here:

https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/308457/powering-off-an-unresponsive-virtual-mac.html