QuickFix: Virtual machine Consolidation is needed – Unable to access file since it is locked – ESXi 5.5

Problematic VM: xxxxTSS001

Symptoms

• Configuration issues: Virtual machine Consolidation is needed

Configuration issues: Virtual machine Consolidation is needed

• Task name: Consolidate virtual machine disk files
• Task results: Unable to access file since it is locked

Consolidate virtual machine disk files / Unable to access file since it is locked

• Events: Virtual machine disks consolidation failed
• Related task: Remove snapshot

Virtual machine disks consolidation failed / Remove snapshot

Affected VM xxxxTSS001 has “Hard disk 2” with last snapshot file xxxxTSS001_1-000028.vmdk.

Virtual Machine Properties

In folder where is VM we see many xxxxTSS001_1-0000xx.vmdk files related with previous snapshots which was created during backup jobs.

VM files

VM files

Cause

VMDK file xxxxTSS001_1-000002.vmdk which was attached to one of disk “Hard Disk 6” in VM “xxxxVDP001” ( vSphere Data Protection ) was causing locking error during consolidation process.

After manually removed “Hard Disk 6” from VM “xxxxVDP001” ( vSphere Data Protection ) consolidation process completed successful.

How we saw this time locked file xxxxTSS001_1-000002.vmdk related was with VDP appliance “xxxxVDP001” which during backup proccess always temporary attach VMDK files in VM which is during backup task. In this case for some reason this VMDK file xxxxTSS001_1-000002.vmdk wasn’t unlocked after backup and that was source of problem. Manually removed attached before VMDK file resolved problem.

Additional information , observation::

• #My tips

Is not easy to find where some VMDK is attached (locked) in VSAN configuration. Some tips which we can use for this is use this command on every ESXi host ( yes i know if we have many hosts in cluster this is not the best solution but is some way):

egrep -i VMNAME /vmfs/volumes/*/*/*.vmx

• #My observation

VMDK file xxxxTSS001_1-000002.vmdk which was attached to VDP and not unlocked after backup complete in this view has different date than other VMDK files in VM folder. This time that information was not helpful but maybe good to know this behavior.

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