Secondary FT Virtual Machine Fails to Power On With VMCP Monitoring Error
Article ID: 451614
Updated On:
Products
Issue/Introduction
In a VMware vSphere High Availability (HA) cluster, a secondary Fault Tolerance (FT) virtual machine fails to power on. The /var/log/fdm.log on the primary ESXi host explicitly blocks the task and logs the following policy exception:
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.MS+HH:MM Db(167) Fdm[3832967] [Originator@6876 sub=Policy opID=WorkQ#############] VM /vmfs/volumes/[MASKED DS]/[MASKED VM]/[MASKED].vmx is not desired protected. Disable VMCP monitoring
Environment
VMware vCenter Server 8.0.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0.x
Cause
vSphere VM Component Protection (VMCP) is activated on the underlying HA cluster, which is architecturally incompatible with vSphere Fault Tolerance workloads. The Fault Domain Manager (FDM) explicitly blocks the FT virtual machine's secondary power-on task to prevent unsafe failover scenarios during Datastore All Paths Down (APD) or Permanent Device Loss (PDL) events.
Resolution
To restore Fault Tolerance functionality without disabling cluster-wide VMCP protection for other workloads, apply a Per-VM Override:
Log in to the vSphere Client and navigate to the target vSphere HA cluster.
Select Configure > Configuration > VM Overrides.
Click Add and select the affected Fault Tolerance virtual machine.
Under vSphere HA > Failures and Responses, set Datastore with PDL to Disabled.
Set Datastore with APD to Disabled.
Click OK to commit the virtual machine override policy.
Initiate the power-on task for the secondary Fault Tolerance virtual machine.
Additional Information
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