"The operation is not supported on the object. Fault Tolerance is not supported for VMs with Namespace enabled." when enabling vSphere Fault Tolerance (FT) on a virtual machine

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• When trying to enable FT on a Virtual Machine, the task fails with the below error:
"The operation is not supported on the object. Fault Tolerance is not supported for VMs with Namespace enabled."

Cause

• vSphere Fault Tolerance is incompatible with Virtual Machines that have Namespace enabled (example: vSphere with Tanzu or specific backup integrations).

Resolution

The "namespaceMgr.dbFile" setting needs to be removed from Virtual Machine configuration file.

To resolve the issue:

1. Power off the Virtual Machine.
   
   
2. Access the ESXi host shell via SSH as root and run the commands below:
   
   
   1. Navigate to the VM directory: 
      /vmfs/volumes/<datastore_name>/<vm_name>


   2. Backup the vmx configuration:
      cp <vm_name>.vmx <vm_name>.vmx.backup


   3. Edit the file :
      vi <vm_name>.vmx


   4. Delete the line:
      namespaceMgr.dbFile = "namespace.db"


   5. Get the list of all the Virtual Machines:
      vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms


   6. Find the impacted Virtual Machine and note the associated VM_ID.
      
      
   7. Reload the Virtual Machine:
      vim-cmd vmsvc/reload <VM_ID>


3. Enable Fault Tolerance:
Right-click the VM -> Fault Tolerance -> Turn On Fault Tolerance.