Auto Startup/Shutdown VMs on Power Loss

[MrPlumber]

Hello! I know this has been covered before (and I've read those documents/threads/etc.), but I'm still having issues. Forgive my ignorance!

So far I've enabled it as so:

But the VMs under "Automatic Startup" still aren't auto-starting. I then found that HA can be a factor (if it's enabled, you can't auto-startup/shutdown VMs). However, it's currently in a N/A state:

Each VM has this same N/A state as well (and VM Tools are installed on all of them, if that matters). I also don't have any Clusters or anything listed under home, so I can't figure out where to truly disable HA:

[VaseemMohammed]

Which version are you running on?

Move the VMs from "Automatic" to "Any Order" click OK.

Go again into Start up and shutdown settings, move VMs to "Automatic"

[BenLiebowitz]

Is this host part of a cluster within vCenter?  This setting is not supported in an HA Cluster. 

Automatic virtual machine startup and shutdown option is disabled/greyed out

[MrPlumber]

@VaseemMohammed

I'm running version 5

I moved the VMs from "Automatic" to "Any Order", clicked OK, went back in and moved the back from "Any Order" to "Automatic" - unfortunately I'm unable to restart the host at this moment though.

[MrPlumber]

@BenLiebowitz

It's currently in a N/A state:

Each VM has this same N/A state as well (and VM Tools are installed on all of them, if that matters). I also don't have any Clusters or anything listed under home, so I can't figure out where to truly disable HA:

[BenLiebowitz]

So, the server is not part of a vCenter server and in a cluster?  Doesn't matter what that field says, is it a stand along vSphere server or is it part of a vCenter cluster?

[MrPlumber]

@BenLiebowitz

Correct, it's a stand-alone server (not part of a cluster/vCenter)

[BenLiebowitz]

Okay, so then that isn't the issue.

Sorry, I haven't used the auto startup/shutdown feature in years as all my hosts have been part of HA Clusters since vSphere 3.

[MrPlumber]

@BenLiebowitz

No apologies needed, I appreciate the help. But yes, this is why I asked in the first place - there's no vCenter/Cluster/HS going on, so I can't figure out why auto startup/shutdown isn't working correctly.

[grasshopper]

Keep in mind that auto startup does not happen by design when maintenance mode is on.  As such, when you want the VMs to auto-start, the host should not be in maintenance mode prior to being rebooted or shutdown.  The reason for this is that sometimes you may want to do maintenance (i.e. replace system board, then confirm time sync before powering on VMs).  For this reason, maintenance mode prevents VMs from starting up.

[MrPlumber]

@grasshopper

Good to know! However, we do not have maintenance mode on

[MrPlumber]

Any thoughts on this? As I said, we don't have maintenance mode on

[peetz · Accepted solution]

It looks like you are running ESXi 5.0 Update 1, and only in that build there was a bug that rendered VM autostart not working ...

Update to a later patch level of 5.0 (or better to 6.0?) to resolve the issue.

More info is here: vSphere Hypervisor Auto Start Bug Fixed - VMware vSphere Blog - VMware Blogs

[MrPlumber]

That makes sense! I'll update to version 6 and report back

[hussainbte]

Any update on the fix, did it work with the newer version?

[MrPlumber]

That did it! I upgraded to 5.0.0 build 1311175 (and updated vSphere Client to 5.0.0 build 1300600) and everything is working correctly now.