File system specific implementation of OpenFile[file] failed to start the virtual machine

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
Virtual machine (VM) will not power on with the error.

File system specific implementation of OpenFile[file] failed Failed to start the virtual machine. Cannot open the disk '/vmfs/volumesvm file path/vmname.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on. Failed to lock the file Module Disk power on failed.

 

Environment

VMware vSphere 7.x

VMware vSphere 8.x

VMware vSphere 9.x

Cause

The File system specific implementation of OpenFile[file] failed error can be caused by:

• Bad entries in virtual disk descriptor files (*.vmdk, *.vmx)
• ESXi OS problems
• Problems with file locks
• Stale locks remained after a storage outage.
• This can happens regardless of storage type, ie, FC, FCOE, iSCSI or NFS.

Resolution

 

To resolve this issues, please follow below steps:

A. Check for VM file locks

• Follow Investigating virtual machine file locks on ESXi hosts

 B. Reboot the ESXi host that is currently holding the file lock. This action is necessary to release the lock on the VM files. 

1. Browse the Datastore where the affected virtual machine's .vmx file resides.

2. Locate the .vmx file and attempt to register the virtual machine on a different ESXi host within the cluster.

3. Once the virtual machine is successfully registered on the new host, power on the affected VM

C. You can also attempt to clear the locks without a reboot with below steps:

1. After following the above KB  Investigating virtual machine file locks on ESXi hosts and no locks are found, you can vmotion/svmotion the VMs off the host and restart the services with:
   services.sh restart
2. Following that, attempt to reset the FC, FCOE or NFS interfaces. A command is shared with each storage type, adjust as necessary:
   
   FC: localcli storage san fc reset -A vmbbaX
   FCOE: localcli storage san fcoe reset -A vmhbaX
   NFS: localcli network nic down -n vmnicX

D. Issue can also occur due to the backup proxy VM holding the vmdk file. Detach the vmdk from the backup proxy VM in order to resolve the lock.

E. If any of the above do not resolve the issue, the lock is almost certainly originating from the storage array, and the storage vendor should be engaged to clear the locks as well.