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shanrid
Contributor
Contributor

VM greyed out with invalid next to it.

This morning I came in and one of the VMs was greyed out with the word invalid next to it. Users are attached to it and I can remote desktop to it. I removed it from inventory and went to the datastore to add it back. The add back to inventory selection is greyed out. I then went to the host attached to the datastore and typed "vmware-cmd -s register servername.vmx" and it just sat there. I tried it again and received vim.fault.AlreadyExists: The specified key, name, or identifier already exists. I was thinking of turning the vm off and try to add it back to the inventory but i am in fear that i will not be able to add it back. I then will have no access to it. Any ideas?

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5 Replies
a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

Just a guess.

Do you have a backup application running (VCB, ...)? If yes make sure it is not locking any of the VM's files.

André

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shanrid
Contributor
Contributor

This is what my backup guys sent me.

Netbackup 7 is using VADP (VMWare vStorage APIs for Data Protection) to take create, backup, and remove snapshots. Netbackup 7 should not be locking any files. If it were, it would be causing this problem with multiple VMs.

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shanrid
Contributor
Contributor

he restarted the backup service to make sure it was not holding onto anything. Still grayed out.

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sabya1232003
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

The best option comes to mind in this case is to go for a V2V Migration ...as it has no user impact during migration and few seconds of network glitch while bringing the new VM into production.As you have said the system is running fine if you access from RDP ...dont think there will be any issues in performing the above task.

Another thing you can try is : restart the vmware mgmt services for the ESX host : #Services vmware-mgmt restart

One more : Locate the PID with respect to that particular VM and find out the status if its really having any issues or not

shanrid
Contributor
Contributor

Brilliant idea!! I will let you know what happens.

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