Failed to export Virtual Machine: Name cannot begin with the / character

[pcolomes]

Hi everyone,

i'm actually having a problem to export certain virtual machines. I become the following error message:

"Failed to export Virtual Machine: Name cannot begin with the '/' character, hexadecimal value 0x2F. Line 39, position 15."

I've checked all the .vmx files and there's no name begining with /. Actually the VM with the problem is called "Profiler-2008R2" and some others too which have a name with no /. After the message appears in the Task list says "Export OVF template", Status: "In Progress", and after 3 or 4 minutes changes to "Operation Timed out"

I could successfully export other VMs running Windows 2008 Server R2 as well. I've search all over Internet but i couldn't find anything related to this error message. I attach a screenshot, the .vmx and vmware.log files.

Thanks in advance

[pcolomes]

I've discovered the machines I cannot export were created using a selfmade template. I installed a Windows 2008 Server R2, made a Template of it and then I deployed the virtual machines. The other machines which were direct installed have no problem at all, only the ones I created from this Windows2008R2 Template as well as Windows 7 template.

All machines are using Hardware version 7 for backward compatibility with ESXi4.1. I've tried also upgrading to version 8 but the problem persists.

[ckobopoga]

I have the same problem. Cannot export VMs, getting

"Name cannot begin with the / character..." error message.

[Linjo]

Any strange characters in the Annotations-field?

// Linjo