Symptoms:
After recent upgrade to ESXi 7.0.3 Build: 18644231 virtual machines with Physical RDM disks can not migrate or be powered on.
The following error message is displayed:

File system specific implementation of Ioctl[file] failed
The source detected that the destination failed to resume.

2021-10-16T00:08:18.7567Z The VM failed to resume on the destination during early power on.
Module Disk power on failed.
Cannot open the disk '/vmfs/volumes/<datastore uuid>/<vm folder>/<specific vmdk pointer to rdm>' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.
Failed to lock the file File system specific implementation of OpenFile[file] failed
VM name : <vm name>

Datastore UUID: <datastore uuid>

Note: The preceding log excerpts are only examples. Date,time and environmental variables may vary depending on your environment

VMware vSphere 7.0.x

When services like SNMP and PTP are running, these services may open RDM devices. A condition may occur where these services fail to close their open device handles properly due to a change in the closure mechanism introduced in ESXi 7.0 U3, resulting in device handles incorrectly being left open resulting in "failed to lock the file" conflicts when another host attempting to power on Virtual Machines with Physical RDM LUNS.

 

This issue is resolved in ESXi 7.0 Update 3c.

Workaround:
In some instances, rebuilding the RDM mapping works around the issue.