Compute-only vMotion failing for large VMs

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Intial compute vMotion for large VMs (file servers, databases, etc.) fail with a timeout

/var/run/log/hostd.log after 2 mins of vMotion task

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ info hostd[2101896] [Originator@6876 sub=Vmsvc.vm:/vmfs/volumes/<datastore name>/<vm directory>/<vm name>.vmx opID=<operation ID>
6 user=vpxuser:<domain name>\<user name>] GetWid: timed out
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ verbose hostd[2101896] [Originator@6876 sub=Vmsvc.vm:/vmfs/volumes/<datastore name>/<vm directory>/<vm name>.vmx opID=<operation ID> user=vpxuser:<domain name>\<user name>] GetWid: canceling migration
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ verbose hostd[2101896] [Originator@6876 sub=Vigor.Vmsvc.vm:/vmfs/volumes/<datastore name>/<vm directory>/<vm name>.vmx opID=<operation ID user=vpxuser:<domain name>\<user name>] VMotion: Cancel message:
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ warning hostd[2101896] [Originator@6876 sub=Vmsvc.vm:/vmfs/volumes/<datastore name>/<vm directory>/<vm name>.vmx opID=<operation ID user=vpxuser:<domain name>\<user name>] GetWid: cancel failed: N3Vim5Fault12InvalidState9ExceptionE(Fault cause: vim.fault.InvalidState
--> )
--> [context]zKq7AVICAgAAAGsRawEQaG9zdGQAANJCF2xpYnZtYWNvcmUuc28AAZp27WxpYnZpbS10eXBlcy5zbwCBA4oHAYGnAQgBgaq5AwECPWzfaG9zdGQAAs9+zwJ3nl8CIj5fgZSvGAECWqBSAMzHLQBUAy4AAhE/Azt9AGxpYnB0aHJlYWQuc28uMAAEbdEObGli
Yy5zby42AA==[/context]
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ warning hostd[2101896] [Originator@6876 sub=Vmsvc.vm:/vmfs/volumes/<datastore name>/<vm directory>/<vm name>.vmx opID=<operation ID user=vpxuser:<domain name>\<user name>] GetWid: Launch failed with fault: (vim.fault.Timedout) {
-->    msg = "",
--> }

 

Subsequent vMotion tasks for the same VM to the same destination host may fail, then eventually one will complete successfully after 1 or multiple tries.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x
VMware vSphere vCenter Server 7.x
VMware vSphere vCenter Server 8.x

Cause

Determined that the issue is caused by extraordinarily high I/O device latency.

Resolution

Reach out to Storage array vendor for assistance.  Try moving the VMs disks to storage that is all flash or higher performance, then retry the compute vMotion.