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Cannot power on a hosted virtual machine when nothing changed

Symptoms

  • Virtual machine does not power on
  • Unable to open file
  • You may receive the following messages or errors:
    • Insufficient permissions
    • Check for missing files failed
    • Cannot open the disk or one of the snapshot disks it depends on
    • The handle is invalid
    • Failed to lock the file
    • The virtual machine is already powered on
    • Your host's BIOS does not have valid NUMA information
    • Please update the host's BIOS or associate the virtual machine with the processors in a single NUMA node (CEC)
    • File not found
    • This file is required to power on this virtual machine
    • If this file was moved, please provide its new location
    • A needed file was not found
    • Unrecoverable error. Unexpected signal 10
    • Unexpected response from vmware-authd
    • 511 vmware-serverd service is not running
    • 511 Error connecting to vmserverdWin32.exe process
    • Error while opening the ACE
    • This ACE has been unable to contact its ACE Management Server.
    • Check your network connection and try again

Purpose

This article guides you through the process of troubleshooting being unable to power on a virtual machine that you were able to power on previously, and where you are not aware of any changes having been made to your environment since the last successful power on that may be responsible. It assists you in eliminating common causes for your problem by verifying that the virtual machine is healthy, that there are sufficient resources and permissions to power it on, and that there is nothing wrong with the storage system on which it is located.

Resolution

Please validate that each troubleshooting step below is true for your environment. Each step will provide instructions or a link to a document, in order to eliminate possible causes and take corrective action as necessary. The steps are ordered in the most appropriate sequence to isolate the issue and identify the proper resolution. Please do not skip a step.
  1. Confirm that the virtual machine cannot power on. In some cases, a virtual machine may be powered on but it is not obvious. For more information, see Investigating if a hosted virtual machine is powered on (1003844) . Additionally, there are times when one method of powering on a virtual machine doesn't work but another method does. For more information, see  Powering on a hosted virtual machine (1003845) .

    Note: If you perform a corrective action in any of the following steps, attempt powering on the virtual machine again.

  2. Confirm that you are trying to power on the correct virtual machine. You may be powering on a virtual machine that does not actually correspond to the virtual machine that you are trying to work with.

  3. Confirm that there are sufficient resources. For more information, see Investigating hosted virtual machine resources (1003848) .
  4. Verify that none of the virtual machine's resources are in use by something else. For more information, see Investigating busy hosted virtual machine files (1003849) .

  5. Confirm that there is enough free disk space. For more information, see Verifying sufficient free disk space for a hosted virtual machine (1003856).

  6. Confirm that there is no lock file in the virtual machine directory. For more information, see Investigating hosted virtual machine lock files (1003857).

  7. Confirm that the virtual machine files and directory are accessible. For more information, see Verifying that hosted virtual machine storage is accessible (1003858).

  8. Confirm that there is no virtual machine file corruption. For more information, see Verifying hosted virtual machine file integrity (1003846).

  9. Confirm that there are sufficient permissions for you to power on the virtual machine. For more information, see Investigating power on permissions for hosted virtual machines (1003847) .

  10. Confirm that VMware host services are running. For more information, see Determining the status of VMware host services (1003850) .

  11. If this is an ACE instance set to use an ACE Management Server (AMS), verify that the AMS is available. For more information, see Checking connectivity to an ACE Management Server (1003851) .
Note: If your problem still exists after trying the steps in this article, please:

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Actions
  • KB Article: 1003670
  • Updated: Aug 14, 2009
  • Products:
    VMware ACE
    VMware Fusion
    VMware GSX Server
    VMware Player
    VMware Server
    VMware Workstation