VM state invalid in vCenter inventory due to file lock from an ESX host

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

In VMware vCenter, a virtual machine (VM) may appear in an "invalid" state within the inventory. You may find yourself unable to re-register the VM because a specific ESXi host is holding a file lock on the VM’s configuration (vm-name.vmx) file. This issue can occur even if the host holding the lock is currently in maintenance mode.

Environment

• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware vCenter Server

Cause

An ESXi host maintains an active lock on the VM files, preventing other hosts from registering or managing the object. This typically happens if a VM process remains running on a host creating a mismatch between the host's actual state and the vCenter inventory.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, you must identify the host holding the lock and re-register the VM from that specific host.

1. Identify the host holding the lock:
   
   Follow standard procedures to identify the MAC address of the host holding the lock by running vmkfstools -D against the VM's .vmx file and reviewing the vmkernel.log.
   
   vmkfstools -D /vmfs/volumes/<Datastore_Name>/<VM_Folder>/<VM_Name>.vmx
tail /var/run/log/vmkernel.log
   
   Find the MAC Address of the host holding the lock as the last portion of the UUID. Example:
   <timestamp> In (182)| vmkernel: gen 37, mode 1, owner ########-########-####-001122334455 mtime 3890942
   
   This would equate to a MAC Address of 00:11:22:33:44:55 in the above example.
   
   Refer to Device or resource busy / file is locked error when making changes to a file on an ESXi datastore for further details.
   
   
2. Access the host:
   
   Log in via SSH to the ESXi host identified by the MAC address.
   
   
3. Exit Maintenance Mode:
       
   Take the ESXi host out of Maintenance Mode.
   
   
4. Register the VM via CLI:
       
   Run the following command to manually register the VM on that host:
   
   vim-cmd solo/registervm /vmfs/volumes/<Datastore_Name>/<VM_Folder>/<VM_Name>.vmx

Additional Information

• Another potential work around would be to delete the lock file detailed in Remove VM vmx file lock
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