Virtual machines names appear as ds:///vmfs/volumes/datastore/vm_name

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article provides steps to troubleshoot and fix non-cloud-managed VMs which appear as a file path (ds:///vmfs/volumes/datastore/vm_name) instead of the VM name.

For cloud-managed environments, see "ds:///vmfs/volumes/datastore/vm_name" name appears for cloud-managed virtual machines

Symptoms:

• Non-cloud-managed Virtual machines names appear as:

ds:///vmfs/volumes/datastore/vm_name

• These virtual machines (VMs) are unmanageable by vCenter Server and ESXi hosts
• The VM is not accessible.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7
VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.5.x
VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.0.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.0
VMware vCenter Server 7.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 6.7.x
VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.7.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0
VMware vCenter Server 6.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 6.5.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5

Cause

The VM name appearing as ds:///vmfs/volumes/datastore/vm_name issue is caused by the VM's files cannot be found by the ESXi host. Some potential causes include:

• Communication problems between ESXi hosts and array
• Datastore problems/corruption
• Storage array configuration
• Storage array problems
• VM file corruption

Resolution

Verify datastore accessibility in the vCenter Server and ESXi host

1. Ensure the datastores with the VM's files is accessible to the vCenter Server in the vSphere Client.
2. Ensure the datastores with the VM's files is accessible in the ESXi host client.
3. If the datastores are inaccessible, see Performing a rescan of the storage on an ESX/ESXi host
4. Reboot the vCenter Server.

If the VM files are not accessible

1. Remove affected VMs showing as paths from the vCenter inventory per Remove VMs or VM Templates from vCenter Server or from the Datastore
2. Re-register the affected VMs per How to register or add a Virtual Machine (VM) to the vSphere Inventory in vCenter Server
3. If VM will not re-register, the VM's descriptor file (*.vmx) may be corrupt.
   1. Create a new VM with the same settings. If you don't know the settings you can use Rebuilding the virtual machine's .vmx file from vmware.log
   2. Attach the existing virtual disks to the new VM
   3. If it still doesn't power on, you will need to restore the VM from backup or rebuild it

If the datastores are still not accessible

• troubleshoot the datastore problems

or

• restore or rebuild VM to healthier datastore

Additional Information

Failed to power on virtual machine