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Knowledge Base

Device or resource busy/ file is locked error when making changes to a file on an ESXi datastore (1008728)

Last Updated: 7/4/2023Categories: TroubleshootingTotal Views: 140801Language:
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Learn how VMware Skyline Advisor and Skyline Health Diagnostics work together to provide proactive intelligence and self-service log analysis.

Use Skyline Advisor to avoid issues before they occur across VCF, vSphere, vSAN, NSX, vROps & Horizon. Skyline Findings are based on top KBs, VMSAs/CVEs and design best practices.

Use Skyline Health Diagnostics to root cause vSphere & vSAN logs when an issue occurs. Skyline Health Diagnostic Findings are based on top KBs and VMSA/CVEs. You can use the Skyline Health Diagnostics tool in online or offline mode.

If you require additional help from technical support, please use Skyline Advisor to initiate a Log Assist to reduce time to upload logs. TSEs can also initiate logs to reduce effort.

Symptoms

When attempting to modify the file by moving, copying or deleting the file on an ESXi datastore, you experience these symptoms:

Modifying the file fails.

You see this error similar to:

device or resource busy

Or

file is locked

Cause

This issue occurs as the file is locked or is being used by another process or task.

Resolution

You can receive this error when the file you are making changes to is locked by another process or task. When the other process is identified , you must wait for the process to complete or stop it.

Warning: Stopping storage related processes abruptly may lead to data corruption.

Note: VMware recommends to validate the file locks. For more information, see Investigating virtual machine file locks on ESXi hosts (10051).

To identify processes that are locking the files:

Open an SSH session to the ESXi host and log in as the root user.

Run this command:

vmkfstools -D path

where the path is the full path to the file you are attempting to make changes.

You can also see the output of the above on the logs: For ESXi hosts, run this command:

tail /var/log/vmkernel.log

Record the MAC address in the output of the vmkfstools command.

For example:

vmkernel: 11:04:31:50.251 cpu1:1035)FS3: 130: <START New Virtual Machine-flat.vmdk>
vmkernel: 11:04:31:50.251 cpu1:1035)Lock [type 10c00001 offset 60088320 v 160, hb offset 3646464
vmkernel: gen 80, mode 1, owner 604931b4-e9227831-df99-00505601300e mtime 532684]
vmkernel: 11:04:31:50.251 cpu1:1035)Addr <4, 130, 156>, gen 157, links 1, type reg, flags 0x0, uid 0, gid 0, mode 100600
vmkernel: 11:04:31:50.251 cpu1:1035)len 16106127360, nb 15360 tbz 0, zla 3, bs 1048576
vmkernel: 11:04:31:50.251 cpu1:1035)FS3: 132: <END New Virtual Machine-flat.vmdk>

Note: The MAC address 00:50:56:01:30:0e is represented as 00505601300e.

Determine which host has created the lock by comparing the MAC address from the output of the vmkfstools command with the MAC address from the management interface of all other ESXi hosts:

a. On the vSphere Client, select the host and click the Configure tab > Networking > VMkernel adapter > Select the vmkernel with a Management tag > Properties > NIC Settings.

b. You can also get this information with the esxcfg-vmknic -l command.

To verify if an existing NIC has the lock use (Check the MAC addresses of the NICS), run this command:

esxcli network nic list  or # esxcfg-nics -l

Run this command to verify that there are no virtual machines that could be using the file you are trying to modify.

find -H /vmfs/volumes/*/*/*.vmx -print0 | xargs -0 grep "filename"

Note: In ESXi, remove the "-H" option. By doing so, you would get two lines for every resulting vmx. One with the Datastore easy name and another with the Datastore UUID.

Run this command to verify that there are no service console processes accessing the file:

lsof | grep -i filename

Verify that all processes accessing the file complete or are stopped.
If these steps do not identify the process that has locked the file, reboot your host or virtual machine.

Warning: Rebooting a host during a storage operation may result in data loss.

Note: If a .vmdk file is locked due to a disk remaining hot-added to a backup appliance or backup proxy VM, such a lock will typically persist after host reboot. (For example: If the backup appliance/proxy VM is migrated to another host prior to host reboot, or if the VM is restarted). Confirm that no active backup job is in progress on the VM disk and manually remove the hot-added .vmdk from the backup appliance/proxy VM. See Unable to consolidate VMware virtual machine snapshots due to file lock (2151402)

Related Information

Powering off an unresponsive virtual machine on an ESX host

データストアでのファイルの操作が次のエラーで失敗する： device or resource busy / file is locked

在数据存储上操作文件失败并显示错误“设备或资源繁忙/文件已锁定”

Detectable by VMware SkylineTM

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