Post changing VM's VMDK name, the VMDK shows as 0 MB

Products

• VMware vSAN

Issue/Introduction

• A VM was re-named.

• While the VM was powered ON, it's vmdk file names were updated to the new name via vSphere Client > Datastore browswer.

Symptoms:

• VM's edit settings show disk capacity as 0 MB:

  

• VM's snapshot creation fails with error: "Detected an invalid snapshot configuration. An error occurred while taking a snapshot: A required file was not found. An error occurred while saving the snapshot: A required file was not found."

• VM continues to run with no issues within it's guestOS.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

VMware vSAN 8.x

Cause

• The VM's VMX configuration file references the VMDKs by the original name.

• Thus when vSphere Client tries to load up information about the disk under Edit Settings, it fails to find the VMDKs using the original name as it does not exist.

• Similarly when taking a snapshot of the VM, the ESXi fails to find the VMDK files by their original name which is in the VMX file. From vmware.log of the VM:

  2026-05-26T23:06:38.695Z In (05) vmx - SNAPSHOT: SnapshotConfigExtFinder: Unable to find file: '<original_vmdk_name>.vmdk'
2026-05-26T23:06:38.7012 In (05) vmx - SNAPSHOT: SnapshotConfigExtFinder: Unable to find file: '<original_vmdk_name>.vmdk'

Resolution

Note: Ensure VM's backup is available before performing the below plan of action. There are possibilities that the VMDK file might get corrupted. Snapshot based backups will not be possible with the current state of the VM.

To resolve this issue, the below two options are available:

1. Rename the VMDKs to the original name:

   1. Update the vmdk file name with the original file name via vSphere Client > Datastore browser.

   2. Repeat for all affected vmdks.

2. Update the new VMDK name in VM's vmx file:
   If the VMDKs are on vSAN datastore, the VMDK's backing vSAN objects must be updated with the correct path - Open a case with VMware by Broadcom support to assist on this.

   1. Power OFF the VM.

   2. Then follow steps from KB - Renaming virtual machine files in-place using the console.

Additional Information

• Renaming a virtual machine and its files in vSphere