Troubleshooting VM template disks

1 VM created from OVA template does not deploy
2 VM is locked during deploy
3 Conversions in progress

VM created from OVA template does not deploy

When you upload an OVA template into Abiquo, and create a VM, then the VM may fail to boot from the disk and just try to do a network boot/PXE. However, if you deploy the same OVA directly into vCenter, then it deploys fine.

This issue may occur when the VM requires UEFI boot but this option is not selected on the VM template.

To resolve the issue, edit the VM template, go to the Advanced tab, and select the UEFI boot checkbox.

VM is locked during deploy

When you are deploying a VM, it may take a very long time, and the VM may appear to be locked, but there are no messages in the logs. The cause of this problem may be a hard disk that is very large for your environment.

If you need to add a large empty disk to your VMs for application data, then the best way to do this is to add an “empty” hard disk to your VM template. After you create a VM from a template with an empty disk, you may be able to resize the empty disk. An empty hard disk should deploy more quickly than a “real disk with no data”.

See Modify VM template disks | Add an empty disk and VM storage.

Conversions in progress

If a template or disk operation is unable to complete due to a system issue, it may seem to be in progress indefinitely. And when you try to delete a problem disk, you may see an error such as:

VIMAGE-30: "Cannot delete virtual machine template because conversions are in progress.

In this case, you may need to delete the disk directly in the file system or change the state of the VM template internally in the platform. Please contact Support for more information.

Effectively you will put your template into the NOT_AVAILABLE state. In the UI, this is called the Deleted state.

To display deleted templates in the Catalogue:

Open the Catalogue, select your datacenter and beside the datacenter name, click the round arrow Refresh button
Select the option to Show deleted templates

The platform will now display the deleted templates with the red X symbol as shown in the following screenshot

Display deleted templates in the catalogue