Virtual Machine Messages are automatically dismissed after 4 minutes

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• When powering on a virtual machine, a message is displayed which requires the user to answer by selecting one of the choices and clicking OK
  
  For example, if virtual machine files are manually moved to a different location, you see the message:
  
  This virtual machine might have been moved or copied.
  
  This Virtual Machine Message is dismissed automatically if not answered within 4 minutes.
  

• In the /vmfs/volumes/datastore_name/virtual_machine_folder/vmware*.log, you see messages similar to:
  

<YYYY-MM-DD>T<time>.345Z| vmx| I120: Msg_Question:
</time><YYYY-MM-DD>T<time></time>.345Z| vmx| I120: [msg.uuid.altered] This virtual machine might have been moved or copied.
<YYYY-MM-DD>T<time></time>.345Z| vmx| I120+ In order to configure certain management and networking features, VMware ESX needs to know if this virtual machine was moved or copied.
<YYYY-MM-DD>T<time></time>.345Z| vmx| I120+
<YYYY-MM-DD>T<time></time>.345Z| vmx| I120+ If you don't know, answer "I Co_pied It".
<YYYY-MM-DD>T<time></time>.345Z| vmx| I120:
<YYYY-MM-DD>T<time></time>.345Z| vmx| I120: ----------------------------------------
<YYYY-MM-DD>T<time></time>.841Z| vmx| I120: Timing out dialog 17344263
<YYYY-MM-DD>T<time></time>.841Z| vmx| I120: Vigor_MessageRevoke: message 'msg.uuid.altered' (seq 17344263) is revoked

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0

Cause

This issue occurs because ESXi 6.x has introduced a 4 minute time out for all virtual machine messages, which is enabled by default.

Resolution

There is no option to disable timeout for the question individually. The timeout period can be increased to a higher value to prevent timeouts. This results in the same behavior of waiting for the question to be answered as in previous versions.

To increase the timeout, add this parameter/value to the virtual machine configuration file:

vui.timeoutUS.question = “9223372036854775807”

For more information on editing virtual machine configuration file, see Tips for editing a .vmx file (1714). 

Additional Information

Tips for editing a .vmx file
仮想マシン メッセージが 4 分後に自動的に閉じられる
4 分钟后自动关闭虚拟机消息