After environment shutdown and restart: vSphere DRS functionality was impacted due to unhealthy state vSphere Cluster services caused by the unavailability of vSphere Cluster Service VMs.

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• vCLS vms are showing in inventory as inaccessible.
• Other vms in the cluster inventory are also inaccessible.
• vSphere client shows warning message: "vSphere DRS functionality was impacted due to unhealthy state vSphere Cluster Services caused by the unavailability of vSphere Cluster Service VMs. vSphere Cluster Service VMs are required to maintain the health of vSphere DRS"
  
• vSAN was shut down using Shutdown Cluster Wizard
• EAM log shows messages similar 

  2025-11-09T17:43:51.438Z | ERROR | cluster-agent-2 | AuditedJob.java | 106 | JOB FAILED: [##########] PowerOnVmJob(ClusterAgent(ID: ########-####-####-############))

  com.vmware.eam.exception.OperationNotAllowed: PowerOn disabled on vm-#######

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 8.0.x

Cause

vSAN cluster isn't running so storage is not available to vms including the vCLS machines.

Resolution

• From the vSAN cluster in the vSphere client for the cluster, click on the restart cluster button.
• Then verify that vCLS machines become available.  If they don't then place the cluster in retreat mode per Disable vCLS on a Cluster via Retreat Mode
• Disable retreat mode - change vCLS Mode for Retreat Mode to Systems Managed