When trying to deploy VM from OVF on vSAN, an error displays "Failed to deploy OVF package. Cause: A general system error occurred: Failed to place witnesses"

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

When trying to deploy from a OVF, it fails with error " Failed to deploy OVF package. Cause: A general system error occurred: Failed to place witnesses. There are currently {1} usuable disks and {2} more usable disks are needed in witness node. Failed to create object. The operation failed due to Cannot complete file creation operation."

On Skyline health, the witness appliance disk is displaying as absent, which is where all the witness components are located. 

This usually occurs on both stretched clusters and two node robo clusters, as vSAN is unable to create witness components on the witness appliance.

Environment

VMware vSAN 8.x

VMware vSAN 9.x

Cause

If the witness appliance is offline or isolated, then vSAN won't be able to place witness components when deploying objects on the environment.

 

Resolution

If the witness appliance disks are displaying offline and all vSAN objects components are absent from that appliance, then put the witness appliance into maintenance mode and then reboot.

This should bring the appliance disks back online, and vSAN witness components will resync and be made available after completion, making the vSAN objects compliant.  

Additional Information

If the vSAN appliance is down completely and need a temporary solution, try enabling force provisioning on storage policy which will deploy VMs as RAID 0. 

Please see article vSAN storage policy's while using forced provisioning reporting as Reduced availability with no rebuild. 

Warning: Enablement of Force Provisioning will deploy any new objects as RAID 0, meaning the data isn't fully protected.