VM import to VirtualCenter are only queued and get time out

[TheDonMiguel]

Hello together

I'm using VC 2 with all patches. I've a little problem with adding a Machine. I've a vmdk copied to a LUN. With VC I browsed the datastore and used the "add to inventory". This operation will be queued but nothing happened. After 15 Minutes the error "operation timed out" appears.

I tried this action also from another VC-Client, same problem. What can I do to solve this time out?

Thanks!

Miguel

[Paul_Lalonde]

Start with restarting the management services:

service mgmt-vmware restart

and then try again about 3 minutes afterwards.

Paul

[patk]

Is the LUN formatted as a VMFS partition? Also, how did you copy the VMDK to the LUN? Also I'm going to assume that you have a .vmx file present and are adding that to your inventory. If that is the case are you certain that this is a VI3/ESX 3.x formatted virtual machine? We had this issue once were a vendor sent us a virtual machine created in some other non-compatible VMware product. Try comparing the .vmx file to one that was created in VC 2.x.

Good Luck...

[TheDonMiguel]

I tried this command allready - nothing changed.

[TheDonMiguel]

Yes, the LUN is formatted as VMFS3. Could there be a problem if the migration was created for VMware Server? The VMX is completly different.

Another question: currently the problem "operation timed out" occurs on every task. Also VMotion and changing other VMware settings. Could this action have crashed my VC?

Thanks

[patk]

Is VC failing on every task that you do regardless of which virtual machine trying something on? If that is the case, try restarting the VMware VirtualCenter Server[/b] service on your VC server. Also I was under the impression that VMware Server VMDKs exist as sparse disks which is not compatible with ESX 3.x. Use the vmkfstools -i[/b] command and target the specified VMDK:

e.g. vmkfstools -i source_dir/source_disk.vmdk target_dir/target_disk.vmdk

This will clone and format the VMDK so that ESX 3.x can use it.

[VirtualNoitall]

"Yes, the LUN is formatted as VMFS3. Could there be a problem if the migration was created for VMware Server? The VMX is completly different. "

Yes, that is the problem. Get your hands on VMware Converter and migrate the vm from VMware Server to ESX server.

[TheDonMiguel]

The VC-Server has been rebooted some times - but no chances. I did the convert of the VMDK as you described (thanks!). I was able to create a new VM and load this VMDK, but the operation was still only queued. After 15 minutes i'll get the time out.

[patk]

Rather than import the VMDK through datastore browsing, can you create a "dummy" virtual machine and assign the cloned virtual disks to that virtual machine? I think that would tell us where the problem is.

[TheDonMiguel]

That's what I've done - created a new machine and selected the "use existing disk" to assign the disk which I've cloned before.

[patk]

There is something simple we are missing. It appears as if VMware Converter may be your only option although you won't be able to convert to an ESX host unless you have the Enterprise edition:

http://vmware.com/products/converter/get.html

I would call VMware to see if an enterprise license is part of your VC purchase. It was included for us as part of our VC SnS Package.

[TheDonMiguel]

I'll downloaded the new licence file and I'm now able to create directly VI3 compatible VMDK's

Does it mean, i've to delete the old VMDK which I've converted? Is it possible, that this file also be guilty for the problems with VC? Because I still get "operation timed out" on other machines when I use VMotion or edit a HW setting...