VM appears as inaccessible in VMware vCenter

Symptoms

VMs will be shown as inaccessible in the vCenter

Reason

A VM can become inaccessible due to any of the below reason:

• Issue with the ESXi servers
• Issue with the vCenter
• Issue with the datastore

Resolution

In all the three cases these are the below three troubleshooting steps:

First step will be to restart the management agents in the ESXi.

• Login to the ESXi using SSH
• Run any of the below commands to restart the management agents

/etc/init.d/hostd restart

/etc/init.d/vpxa restart

or

services.sh restart

If this step did not resolve the issue for you, try the second step

Second step will be to remove the VM from the inventory and add using the vmx file

• Right click on the affected VM
• Choose the option 'Remove from the Inventory' (Be cautious about this action...Do not delete the VM)
• After this step, go to the vmx location of the VM
• Right click on the VM and 'Add to the Inventory'

This step will definitely resolve your issue. But this step works fine only when we know the vmx location of the VM. If you are not sure about the vmx location you will end up in adding incorrect VMs. 

Keep in your mind that you cannot access the vmdk location to find the vmx path when the VM is inaccessible.

In these kind of situations, the best method is to use command line, the third step!!!

• Login to the ESXi hosting the inaccessible VM using SSH
• Run the below command to know the vmid of the VMs in the host

vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms

You will receive a message "Skipping invalid VM '144' " along with the details of valid VMs.

The skipped VM will be the invalid one. The value '144' represents the vmid of the VM.

• Now run the below command to reload the invalid VM

vim-cmd vmsvc/reload vmid   where vmid is the id of the invalid VM

 That will save your day!!!