Virtual machines are orphaned after rebooting the ESXi host on which they reside

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
Virtual machines become orphaned when you reboot the ESXi host on which they are running.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 5.0.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0

Cause

This issue occurs if the host is rebooted within an hour after the virtual machines are moved or powered on, as the vmInventory.xml file does not persist and hostd does not report these virtual machines as registered on the host. In an HA enabled cluster, this condition impacts only the virtual machines with HA restart disabled.

Resolution

This is a known issue.

To workaround this issue:

1. Power off the virtual machine.
2. Use vCenter Server to un-register the affected virtual machine from the inventory and register it back again.
   
   For more information, see Registering or adding a virtual machine to the inventory (1006160).
    
3. Power on the virtual machine
4. Repeat this procedure for all affected virtual machines.

Additional Information

• Virtual machines appear as invalid or orphaned in vCenter Server
• ESXi ホストを再起動すると、そこにある仮想マシンが親なしになる