vSphere HA failover may fail with an "Insufficient resources to fail over this virtual machine" error if a VM previously running on another vCenter is registered from the datastore browser and powered on without changing the connected port group

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• vSphere HA fails for a specific virtual machine, and the 'vSphere HA virtual machine failover failed' alarm is triggered.
  
  
• The following event log is recorded:
  
  

  Insufficient resources to fail over this virtual machine. vSphere HA will retry the fail over when enough resources are available. Reason: The host does not have sufficient resources to power on the virtual machine

 

• The target ESXi host has enough available resources.
  
  
• The primary host's /var/run/log/fdm.log records that no compatible host can be found:
  
  

  YYYY-mm-ddTHH:MM:SS.xxxZ Db(167) Fdm[554782]: [Originator@6876 sub=Invt opID=placementService.cpp:151-2af8f91e] Compat list for /vmfs/volumes/<datastore>/<vm>/<vm>.vmx:
  YYYY-mm-ddTHH:MM:SS.xxxZ In(166) Fdm[554782]: [Originator@6876 sub=Placement opID=placementService.cpp:151-2af8f91e] SPE: VM /vmfs/volumes/<datastore>/<vm>/<vm>.vmx has 0 compatible hosts

 

• The affected virtual machine was previously running on a different vCenter and was cold-migrated by registering the virtual machine directly from the datastore browser.
  
  
• The .vmx file retains a reference to the vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS) of the previous vCenter:
  

  ethernet0.dvs.switchId = "## ## ## ## ## ## ## ##-## ## ## ## ## ## ## ##"

Cause

The virtual machine's network adapter still references the VDS of the previous vCenter, preventing the vSphere HA agent from finding a compatible host.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, change the virtual machine's network connection to a valid port group in the current vCenter.

1. Right-click the affected virtual machine and select Edit Settings.
2. Change the Network Adapter connection to an appropriate port group available in the current vCenter.
3. Click OK to save the changes.