vSphere VM missing after Offline move

[wehoward]

Moving from an AMD based cluster to an Intel one for an upgrade. Did an offline move of my vCenter between the clusters, but when I bring it back online on the new Intel cluster I can't actually SEE the VM, even though it is obviously online and working. When I connect to the ESXi host I can see it, but when viewing thru the vCenter server I don't see the VM itself. Any ideas on how to get it to register?

[BenLiebowitz]

When you say offline move, you powered the VM down, and performed a migration from 1 cluster to another, or did you remove it from inventory and then re-add it to the other cluster? 

Have you tried browsing the datastore and manually adding it? 

[wehoward]

I shut down the VM, did an SCP from the old cluster to the new one (no way of sharing storage between them, both use different FC SANs in diff locations), and then connected to the host on the new cluster, imported the VM, and powered it on. When I connect to the vCenter server, and go under the VMs, I don't see any VMs.

[BenLiebowitz]

Hmmm... so you browsed the datastore after the SCP and added the VM to inventory but you still don't see it?  how are you connected to the vSphere server?  Are you connecting to vCenter via the Web Client or thick client?  Were both hosts at the same vSphere version?  Have you tried disconnecting and re-connecting to that vCenter/host?  Have you tried browsing and adding the VM again? 

Why didn't you just use the VMware Standalone Converter to migrate the VM?  Was there a reason you did an SCP transfer instead?

[wehoward]

Hmmm... so you browsed the datastore after the SCP and added the VM to inventory but you still don't see it?  how are you connected to the vSphere server?  Are you connecting to vCenter via the Web Client or thick client?  Were both hosts at the same vSphere version?  Have you tried disconnecting and re-connecting to that vCenter/host?  Have you tried browsing and adding the VM again?

Why didn't you just use the VMware Standalone Converter to migrate the VM?  Was there a reason you did an SCP transfer instead?

Tried both Web Client and Thick Client. Both hosts were at 5.5, but don't think the AMD hosts were U2. I have not tried removing and readding it, because it is currently managing both clusters.

I... didn't think about using the Converter. It's a vCenter Appliance VM, can you even run converter against that? I'm probably just going to recreate it, it's not worth the hours I'm putting in troubleshooting it.

[BenLiebowitz]

I hear what you're saying on the time troubleshooting the issue...  but I find it hard to just put issues aside without FINDING OUT what happened! 

I'm not talking about removing the host but the VM itself.  Is the VM still running in the old cluster?  Are both hosts in the same vCenter?  If so, you don't need both hosts to see the same storage, if the VM is powered off, vCenter will do the copying for you.  Do both VMs have the same name?  if so, this may be your problem.

I don't see why you can't use the VMware converter for an appliance.  As long as it isn't a vAPP, you should be able to use it to migrate.  I usually only do this if I'm migrating between vCenter environments though.  I will try to do everything I can do use vCenter to migrate if it's going from one cluster to another within the same vCenter.

[wehoward]

They are separate clusters in the same Datacenter in vCenter, although they are separate physical locations with a pretty bad link between the two.

I can't do an online migration because the hosts have diff processors, AMD vs Intel. Doing it offline thru vCenter can't be done because we're talking about the vCenter VM itself.

[BenLiebowitz]

Ahh okay.  You could use the stand alone converter though.  Connect directly to each host as the source and destination and migrate it that way. 

Worth a try before you start over again. 

[wehoward]

That's the thing. It's working on the new cluster! It registered fine on the host, and the VM is up and running. it just doesn't... see itself... when I connect to vCenter itself.

[BenLiebowitz]

Have you tried connecting to the host's console and stopping/restarting the Management Agents on it?  Or reboot the vCenter Appliance? 

[wehoward]

Yes to both, no change.

[wehoward]

Looks like the issue is in the vCenter Inventory Service not starting up properly. I shut it down, unregistered it from the host it was on, verified it was not registered on the old cluster, and started it up on another host in the new cluster and watched it boot.

When it came up, It started the Inventory Service, but failed to register itself.

InventoryService ready after 0 seconds.

Unregistering vCenter Server with Inventory Service... Picked up JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS: -Xmsw-16M -Xnx128M

Registering vCenter Server with Inventory Service... Picked up JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS: -Xmsw-16M -Xnx128M

failed

Please, restart vmware-vpxd to enable the Inventory Service.

Now going thru to figure out what's wrong with the inventory service.

[BenLiebowitz]

So the source VM is shutdown and removed from inventory? 

[wehoward]

Yes, but I'm thinking I have a bad copy of the VM. Dunno if you saw my other reply, but it is showing the Inventory Service can't start. That's why it can't locate the VM properly.

I'm going to shut it down and recopy the VM from the source cluster, something obviously went wrong during the copy.

[BenLiebowitz]

It's possible something became corrupted with your file copy. 

I say try this time using the VMware Converter.  The issue with that is going to be you can't remove the original VM from inventory first.  So you either need to use a different name with the source, or rename the original before the copy is made. 

[wehoward]

I'm going to try the converter, and just tell it NOT to power on when it reaches the destination. Then shut down the source and remove it from inventory before I power on the new one.

[BenLiebowitz]

If you power the source VM off, rename it with _old or something, you'll be able to keep the old VM in inventory but powered off and be able to power on the destination VM.  This way, if there is an issue with the new one, you can easily switch back.   

[wehoward]

Well my first attempt failed, because it refused to copy directly onto a host that was managed by vCenter. I had to do it while vCenter was offline, because when I connect directly to vCenter it doesn't show vCenter as a possible target VM to migrate, so I had to do it directly from the source host. But with vCenter offline, it won't let me copy onto a host without vCenter's permission.

Now I'm taking one of the hosts out of the cluster so I can use it as a target for the converter. Started the conversion, but the link between the datacenters is pretty slow so it's going to take a couple hours. Hope this works. Thanks for the help!

[Mario321l]

ok