Event on ESXi hosts "Unable to apply DRS resource settings on host"

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• The following message is reported for a specific ESXi host in vSphere Client:

  "Unable to apply DRS resource settings on host in . The operation is not allowed in the current state. This can significantly reduce the effectiveness of DRS." 

• This event consistently triggers after a virtual machine is being backed up by a 3rd party backup solution.
• At the same time the warning appears in the vSphere Client, the following entries are logged in the vpxd.log:

  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:SS.SSS warning vpxd[4##1] [Originator@6876 sub=MoResGroup opID=HB-host-###@3####5] Receive ConfigIssue when processing RP updates from host [vim.HostSystem:host-###,esxi.example.com] type vim.fault.InvalidState on ManagedObject vim.ResourcePool:resgroup-## for method vim.ResourcePool.updateChildResourceConfiguration

• The following entries are logged in the hostd.log on the ESXi host:

  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:SS.SSS In(166) Hostd[7#####3] [Originator@6876 sub=Vimsvc.TaskManager opID=HB-SpecSync-host-##@###### sid=1######4 user=vpxuser:] Task Created : haTask-ha-root-pool-vim.ResourcePool.updateChildResourceConfiguration-########
...
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:SS.SSS Er(163) Hostd[7#####3] [Originator@6876 sub=Vmsvc.vm:/vmfs/volumes/########-########-####-############/vm_name/vn_name.vmx opID=HB-SpecSync-host-##@###### sid=1######4 user=vpxuser:] Invalid transition requested (VM_STATE_REMOVE_SNAPSHOT -> VM_STATE_RECONFIGURING): Invalid state

Environment

VMware vCenter Server
VMware vSphere ESXi

Cause

This is caused by a conflict between snapshot removal during VM backups and DRS resource setting updates. When DRS attempts to sync settings to the ESXi host while certain VMs are snapshot removal state, the application of DRS resource settings fails. Consequently, the warning "Unable to apply DRS resource settings" could be triggered during third-party backup operations.

Resolution

Broadcom is aware of this issue and a fix is planned for a future release.

Workaround: 

There are two options:

1. Perform vMotion any virtual machine running on the target ESXi host.
2. Restart vpxa and hostd services on the target ESXi host. 

   /etc/init.d/hostd restart
/etc/init.d/vpxa restart