VM status 'Unknown xx (inaccessbile)'

[Porkopops]

Hi,

We had a Host with an Eval license by mistake, which then expired and all the licensed features were lost on that host.

I applied the correct license to the Host, but 50% of the VM's are now reporting the VM status 'Unknown xx (inaccessbile)' this is using the VI Client to connect directly to the host. If connecting via VCentre, I can see that the VM's are listed as 'HostName (inaccessible)'.

These VM's are on an NFS share. I thought the cause may be that the NFS share was restricted by the license issue that I had previously corrected, but I'm unsure this is the case because the VM's that are still operational on this host are also running from the same NFS share. The only other Datastore configured for this host are its local disks. There are some operational VM's on the local datastore.

I'm wondering if there's a service that I should restart after the license change?

Or does anyone have any ideas on this ?

All help is greatly appreciated.

Best Regards,

Paul

[admin · Accepted solution]

Hi Paul,

The VM's show up as Inaccessible or Unknown if the vCenter server looks for the VMs to be in a specific location where they No longer exist , marking them as unknown.

Use the VI client to connect to the Host directly and remove all the Unknown xx, by right clicking on the entry and remove from inventory. Then remove all the HostName (inaccessible from the vCenter server ). Once done.

re-register the VM's back and the below

KB should help :VMware KB: Inaccessible virtual machines are named as Unknown VM

Thanks,

Avinash

[Porkopops]

Thanks Avinash21... Very simple process!!

Paul

[aidinbaran]

Hi,

Unfortunately I am experiencing the same issue with the difference that I have restored iSCSI access to the LUN and I can browse my datastore and see the files within. but esx 5.5 host still displays all the VMs in that datastore as "inaccessible". I have tried a bunch of possibilities without any positive result, including:

1. removing the VMs from inventory and adding them again

2. delete files in /var/lib/vmware/hostd/stats

3. Rename vmInventory.xml and adding the VMs again

The one thing that I have noticed which makes me more fightened is that I cannot download or copy the existing VM files within my datastore but I am able to create new ones!

Any suggestions that may save me?

[admin]

Hi,

could you verify the following.?

1. check if you are able to touch the vmx and vmdk files.?

2. check the vmkernel.log for any corruption error messages.?

-- Avinash

[aidinbaran]

Hi Avinash,

Unfortunately, the VM files especially VMX and VMDK cannot be moved or copied from the datastore! Hence, the VMX has a lock on it and it might be the reason that they both are not accessible.

I also tried migrating them to a new store but it didn't work either. I am planning to add a new host and migrate the VM to the new host.

Any idea?

--Aidin