vMotion fails or hangs at 0% with storage Aborted Command in ESXi

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• Virtual machine management operations, specifically vMotion, fail to initiate or hang at 0%.
  
  
• vCenter Server displays hosts as "Not Responding" or fails to update task/event status (continuous loading).
  
  
• Datastores may appear inaccessible.
  
  
• From ESXi, /var/run/log/vobd.log  there are events with "Heartbeat Timeout" errors.
  
  2026-06-07T17:26:22.394Z In (14) vobd[2098147]:[vmfsCorrelator] 172561690579lus: [esx.problem.vmfs.heartbeat.recovered] #######-######-####-############ Datastore-01
2026-06-07T17:26:22.394Z In(14) vobd[2098147]:The event ( [esx.problem. vmfs.heartbeat.recovered] #######-######-####-############ Datastore-01) was sent immediately to hostd;
2026-06-07T17:26:34.3952 In(14) vobd[2098147]:[vmfsCorrelator] 1725604673860us: [vob.vmfs.heartbeat. timedout] #######-######-####-############ Datastore-01
2026-06-07T17:26:34.3952 In(14) vobd[2098147] :[vmfsCorrelator] 1725628906304us: [esx.problem.vmfs.heartbeat. timedout] #######-######-####-############ Datastore-01
2026-06-07T17:26:34.3952 In(14) vobd[2098147]:The event ([esx.problem. vmfs.heartbeat. timedout] #######-######-####-############ Datastore-01) was sent immediately to hostd;

Environment

VMware ESXi 7.x
VMware ESXi 8.x

Cause

 This issue occurs when a storage-layer triggers persistent SCSI "Aborted Command" statuses. The Additional Sense Codes (ASC/ASCQ) indicate Data Phase Errors at the storage target. These pending I/O requests cause the ESXi kernel threads to block, eventually locking the management agents (hostd and vpxa) and preventing heartbeats to vCenter.

From ESXi, var/run/log/vmkernel.log there is an event for "Abort command"

2026-06-08T00:46:48.334Z In (182) vmkernel: cpu68:10768080) qlnativefc: vmhbal(41:0.1): qlnativefcEhAbort:2769:qlnativefcEhAbort: abortCommand mbx success.
2026-06-08T00:46:48.3342 In(182) vmkernel: cpu70:2107367) qlnativefc: vmhbal(41:0.1): qlnativefcStatusEntry:2076:C0:T1:L0 - FCP command status: 0x5-0x0 (0x8) portid=011300 oxid=0x3a cdb=280000 len=1048576 rspInfo=0x0 resid=0x0 fwResid=0x0
host status - 0x8 device status.
2026-06-08TOO:46:48.334Z In (182) vmkernel: cpu66:2098672) ScsiDeviceIO: 4697: Cmd (0x45db99b2df80) 0x28, CmdSN 0x878a7ea from world 10806554 to dev "naa.##########################" failed H:0x8 D: 0x0 P:0x0
2026-06-08TOO:46:48.534Z In (182) vmkernel: Cp: cpu68:10768080) qlnativefc: vmhba7 (al:0.1) qlnativefcEhAbort:2797:C0:T1:LO: Abort command succeeded -- 1
2026-06-08TO0:46:48.534Z In(182) vmkernel: cpu68:10768080) qlnativefc: vmhbal(41:0.1): qlnativefcTaskMgmt:2308:Task Mgmt abort on serial num 878a7ea
2026-06-08T00:46:48.5342 In (182) vmkernel: cpu68:10768080) qlnativefc: vmhbal(41:0.1): qlnativefcEhAbort:2797:C0:T31:LO: Abort command succeeded -= 0
2026-06-08T00:46:48.534Z In (182) vmkernel: cpu68:10768080) qlnativefc: vmhba7(al:0.1): qlnativefcTaskMgmt:2308:Task Mgmt abort on serial num 878a7eb

Resolution

Engage storage team/vendor to further investigate the issue.