Persistent Disk Deleted in vSphere without trigger from Horizon

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Performing an image push, and a VM persistent disk was deleted. 

Environment

VMware vSphere 8.0u3x

Cause

From hostd.log in ESXI, we see the following entries on the date and time associated with the image push:

hostd.log:2025-12-18T12:43:57.493Z In(166) Hostd[2098782]: [Originator@6876 sub=Vmsvc.vm:/vmfs/volumes/5e13cb01-6xxxxx-dxxxb-0025xxxxx/01cb3439-b9fc-46f2-9395-769xxxxxxxx/01cb34xxxx-b9fc-46f2-9395-769aa1c78a49.vmx opID=2ca611dd-59-31bb sid=52fd53d9 user=vpxuser:USERXXX\horizon] Destroy VM called

hostd.log:2025-12-18T12:43:57.589Z Db(167) Hostd[2098782]: [Originator@6876 sub=Vmsvc.vm:/vmfs/volumes/5e13cb01-6xxxxx-dxxxb-0025xxxx/01cb3439-b9fc-46f2-9395-769xxxxxxxxx/01cb34xxx-b9fc-46f2-9395-769xxxxx.vmx opID=2ca611dd-59-31bb sid=52fd53d9 user=vpxuser:USERXXX\horizon] Destroy VM complete

Resolution

Per the above log entries, there was a VM destroy task initiated by the Horizon user and the destroy task was completed. 

 

Additional Information

Ideally, the vCenter journal log can also be checked to get more details of the destroy task. Additionally, in vSphere client, select the host>>Monitor>>task and events and search for tasks that occurred on the date and time associated with the event.