VSphere clone on ESXi V6.7 - A general system error occurred: internal error

[bakerjw1]

I am running VSphere and am attempting to clone an VM. I have successfully cloned 3 different VMs today on 2 different servers but this one is giving me fits.

The VMs are hosted on ESXi V6.7.

The host and guest are both in compliance according to Update Manager.

There is a base snapshot and the guest VM in question is powered down.

Compatibility is ESXi 6.7 and later (VM version 14)

The Datastore has plenty of room available on it.

Halfway through the clone process, I get the following non descript error.

A general system error occurred: internal error

digging into the log file on the VSphere server, I find the following.

The first sign of trouble seemed to be.

2019-01-08T13:06:25.442-05:00 error vpxd[09004] [Originator@6876 sub=VmProv opID=ProvisioningWizard-addMulti-1257439-ngc:70039911-9d-01] Get exception while executing action vpx.vmprov.CopyVmFiles: class Vmomi::Fault::SystemError::Exception(Fault cause: vmodl.fault.SystemError

Some Workflow Context follows showing source and destination locations for VMDK and NVRam with a lot of parameters.

Then there is the error that was reported.

2019-01-08T13:06:25.846-05:00 info vpxd[09004] [Originator@6876 sub=Default opID=ProvisioningWizard-addMulti-1257439-ngc:70039911-9d-01] [VpxLRO] -- ERROR lro-2375191 --  -- VmprovWorkflow: vmodl.fault.SystemError:

--> Result:

--> (vmodl.fault.SystemError) {

-->    faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,

-->    faultMessage = <unset>,

-->    reason = "internal error"

-->    msg = ""

--> }

--> Args:

NO ARGS FOLLOW

2019-01-08T13:06:25.850-05:00 info vpxd[09004] [Originator@6876 sub=Default opID=ProvisioningWizard-addMulti-1257439-ngc:70039911-9d] [VpxLRO] -- ERROR task-16173 -- vm-45 -- vim.VirtualMachine.clone: vmodl.fault.SystemError:

--> Result:

--> (vmodl.fault.SystemError) {

-->    faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,

-->    faultMessage = <unset>,

-->    reason = "internal error"

-->    msg = ""

--> }

ARG Folder follows

Any thoughts on what could cause this?

I can easily just load up a new OS, but I'd like to understand a bit more of how to fix this kind of error.

Thanks

[dbalcaraz]

Well, you have already checked the vxpd logs so just a couple of things to check in the VM to clone.

- Snapshots, NIC with an assigned non-existent portgroup.

Did you try to shutdown the VM and try to clone?
If so, try to rename it and perform a storage vMotion to another DS.

[bakerjw1]

Thanks for the reply.

Prior to attempting a clone...

1. I Ensured that the base OS was fully updated.
2. Shut the guest VM down and made a YYYYMMDD_UPDATED snapshot.
3. Booted the guest VM to ensure that it is running properly.
4. Shut down the guest VM.
5. Removed all snapshots with the exception of the UPDATED one that I had created.
6. Attempted the clone.

The guest VMs on this ESXi server all use 2 NICs with 2 specific port groups. The clone is staying on the same ESXi server so the port groups are valid. In fact, I cloned another identical VM in the same location with the same configuration without a problem.

look into migrating it to another DS and see what happens. Worst case, as mentioned, is that I rebuild the OS.

[dbalcaraz]

Worst case, would be to use the snapshot as the source disk in order to NOT rebuild an OS.

[Techstarts]

Thanks a lot dbalcaraz​, storage vmotion helped solve this problem