Error: Another task is already in progress during VM power on due to stale CBT files.

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

A virtual machine (VM) fails to power on with an error indicating another task is in progress.

Symptoms:

• Virtual machine power-on task hangs at 33% or 66%.

• /vmfs/volumes/datastore_name/vm_name/vmware.log file contains the following entries:

DISKLIB-CTK : Could not open change tracking file "/vmfs/volumes/datastore_name/vm_folder/vm_name-ctk.vmdk": Change tracking invalid or disk in use.

DISKLIB-CTK : Error creating file ... 3 (The file already exists)

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi  8.x

VMware vCenter Server 8.x

Cause

Stale or corrupted changed block tracking (CBT) files (-ctk.vmdk) from a previous snapshot or backup failure prevents the ESXi host from acquiring exclusive storage locks to initialize the virtual disks.

Resolution

1. Connect to the ESXi host via SSH.

2. Verify that no active third-party backup appliance is holding a lock on the base disk: vmfsfilelockinfo -p /vmfs/volumes/datastore_name/vm_folder/vm_name-flat.vmdk

3. Navigate to the virtual machine directory: cd /vmfs/volumes/datastore_name/vm_folder/

4. Create a temporary folder and move all .vmsd and .ctk.vmdk files to a temporary directory:

   1. mkdir temp

   2. mv *-ctk.vmdk temp

   3. mv *vmsd temp

5. Create a backup of the virtual machine's configuration file: cp vm-name.vmx vm-name.vmx.bak

6. Disable CBT in the configuration file (.vmx): Open the .vmx file with a text editor and set the following parameters to false:

   1. ctkEnabled = "false"

   2. scsix:x.ctkEnabled = "false"

7. Identify the VMID: vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms

8. Reload the virtual machine configuration: vim-cmd vmsvc/reload <VMID>

9. Power on the virtual machine via the vSphere Client.

Additional Information

VM power on fails at 73% with error "Change tracking invalid or disk in use"

VM consolidation failed with the error "failed, another task is in progress"