Error: Failed to lock the file (16392) when powering on a VVOL VM

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

When attempting to power on a Virtual Machine (VM) residing on a Virtual Volumes (vVOL) datastore, the operation fails. Administrators may observe the following symptoms:

• The VM fails to power on, generating the error: Failed to lock the file (16392).

• A snapshot exists on at least one of the VMDKs.

• The affected VMDK reports a size of 0 Bytes within the VM's "Edit Settings" menu.

Environment

• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0.3

• Virtual Volumes (vVOL)

Cause

• Snapshot removal was attempted  when the Linux less command was actively running against a descriptor file which prevents necessary updates to the descriptor file or may leave the descriptor file locked.
• Below are log excerpts demonstrating the time of the last success and the subsequent locking error:

Hostd.x: 2026-xx-xxTxx:xx:xx.011Z In(166) Hostd[2102066]: [Originator@6876 sub=Libs opID=xxxxxxcc-xx-axxx sid=xxxxxxxx user=vpxuser:VSPHERE.LOCAL\vpxd-extension-xfxxfxae-exxx-xxxx-axxc-xxxbxffxaaxx] FCDLIB-Util:For diskpath /vmfs/volumes/vvol:####...-000001.vmdk and uuid xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx-xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx, nativeSnapshotSupported = 1
hostd.x: 2026-xx-xxTxx:xx:xx.328Z In(166) Hostd[2102038]: [Originator@6876 sub=Libs opID=WorkQueue-xxxxxxxx-xx-xxxx sid=xxxxxxxx user=vpxuser:<no user>] AIOMGR: AIOMgr_OpenWithRetry: Descriptor file '/vmfs/volumes/vvol:####...-000001.vmdk' locked (try 0)

Resolution

To resolve this issue, attempt the following workarounds to release the lock and recover the VM. If these recovery attempts fail, you will need to restore the VM from a backup.

Workaround Attempts:

1. Identify and terminate the active less process on the ESXi host that is locking the file.

2. Create a new virtual machine and attach the existing disks to recover the data.

Fallback:

• If the data cannot be recovered using the workarounds above, restore the virtual machine from a known good backup.

Additional Information

less should not be run on VM descriptor files while VM operations like snapshot are ongoing and this is not specific to vvol VM's.