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vMotion of a virtual machine fails with the error: A general system error occurred: Failed to flush checkpoint data!

Symptoms

vMotion of virtual machines may fail
You see the error:

A general system error occurred: Failed to flush checkpoint data!
This issue occurs when:
- The resolution of the virtual machines is higher than 1280x1024, or smaller if you are using a second screen
- The guest operating system is using the WDDM driver (Windows 7, Windows 2008 R2, Windows 2008, Windows Vista)
- The virtual machine is using Virtual Machine Hardware version 8
The Error Stack in the vCenter Server task details shows these messages:
- An I/O error occurred while saving the checkpoint: 0 (Resource temporarily unavailable)
- Failed to write checkpoint data (offset xxxxxxxx, size xxxxx): Failed to resume VM.

The virtual machine's vmware.log contains this error:

vmx| MigrateSetState: Transitioning from state 9 to 11.

vmx| Migrate_SetFailure: Failed waiting for data. Error bad0006. Limit exceeded.

vmx|

vmx| Migrate: cleaning up migration state.

vmx| MigrateSetState: Transitioning from state 11 to 0.

vmx| Msg_Post: Error

vmx| [vob.vmotion.chkpt.toobig] vMotion migration [XXXXXXXX:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] failed. The checkpoint data length (xxxxx bytes) or the offset (xxxxxxxx bytes) exceeds the maximum checkpoint data length (xxxxxxxx byte).

vmx| [msg.moduletable.powerOnFailed] Module Migrate power on failed.

Cause

Due to new features with Hardware Version 8 for the WDDM driver, the vMotion display graphics memory requirement has increased. The default pre-allocated buffer may be too small for certain virtual machines with higher resolutions. The buffer size is not automatically increased to account for the requirements of those new features if mks.enable3d is set to FALSE (the default).

Resolution

To work around this issue, perform one of these options:

Change the resolution to a single screen of 1280x1024 or smaller before the vMotion.
Do not upgrade to Virtual Machine Hardware version 8.
Increase the base checkpoint cache size. Doubling it from its default 8MB to 16MB (16777216 byte) should be enough for every single display resolution. If you are using two displays at 1600x1200 each, increase the setting to 20MB (20971520 byte).

To increase the base checkpoint cache size:
1. Power off the virtual machine.
2. Click the virtual machine in the Inventory.
3. On the Summary tab for that virtual machine, click Edit Settings.
4. In the virtual machine Properties dialog box, click the Options tab.
5. Under Advanced, select General and click Configuration Parameters.
6. Click Add Row.
7. In the new row, add migrate.baseCptCacheSize to the name column and add 16777216 to the value column.
8. Click OK to save the change.
Note: If you don't want to power off your virtual machine to change the resolution, you can also append migrate.baseCptCacheSize = 16777216 to the /etc/vmware/config file on the target host. This adds the option to every VMX process that is spawning on this host, which happens when vMotion is starting a virtual machine on the server.
Set mks.enable3d = TRUE for the virtual machine:
1. Power off the virtual machine.
2. Click the virtual machine in the Inventory.
3. On the Summary tab for that virtual machine, click Edit Settings.
4. In the virtual machine Properties dialog box, click the Options tab.
5. Under Advanced, select General and click Configuration Parameters.
6. Click Add Row.
7. In the new row, add mks.enable3d to the name column and add True to the value column.
8. Click OK to save the change.

Caution: This workaround increases the overhead memory reservation by 256MB. As such, it may have a negative impact on HA Clusters with strict Admission Control. However, this memory is only used if the 3d application is active. If, for example, Aero Basic and not Aero Glass is used as a window theme, most of the reservation is not used and the memory could be kept available for the ESX host. The reservation still affects HA Admission Control if large multi-monitor setups are used for the virtual machine and if the CPU is older than a Nehalem processor and does not have the SSE 4.1 instruction set. In this case, using 3d is not recommended. The maximum recommended resolution for using 3d, regardless of CPU type and SSE 4.1 support, is 1920x1200 with dual screens.

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