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Procedure to change the UUID of a VM

PROBLEM

I/O errors were encountered while attempting to accessing VM flat or pancbt files after a VM’s UUID was changed. The vmPRO posted alerts similar to the following:

ESX Server '10.30.12.119',  Virtual Machine
'564dc562-1953-c13c-4dcc-64bfbc52e425': Discovery of virtual machine
'10.30.12.119:Tiny8_hy' failed (Cannot assign two VMs with the same name
(Tiny8_hy) into the same folder (10.30.12.119): attempted to add the VM to the
folder that already contains the VM of 10.30.12.119.).

ESX Server '10.30.12.119',  Virtual Machine
'564dc562-1953-c13c-4dcc-64bfbc52e4ff': Snapshot creation failed for virtual
machine 'Tiny8_hy' on server '10.30.12.119'.

ESX Server '10.30.12.119',  Virtual Machine
'564dc562-1953-c13c-4dcc-64bfbc52e425': /sbin/dmsetup: Invalid argument ESX
Server '10.30.12.119',  Virtual Machine '564dc562-1953-c13c-4dcc-64bfbc52e485':
Cannot find 1 snapshot on /export.shadow/flatchk/Tiny8_hy in 300 seconds, only
found 0 snapshots 

CAUSE

The VM's UUID was improperly changed.

SOLUTION

To avoid I/O errors and run-time alerts, perform the following procedure to change the UUID of a VM:

1. If the VM is running, shutdown and power off the VM.
2. Remove the VM from the ESX server or the vCenter's inventory using the vSphere Client.
3. Manually edit the vmx file in datastore of the ESX server, or change the VM's UUID by following the
   instructions in the VMware KB article Editing a virtual machine with a duplicate UUID.bios.
4. Add the VM back into the ESX/vCenter inventory using the vSphere Client.
5. Reboot the vmPRO, or run the panshell command system restart services all, or
   restart the datastore_fs service directly.