Failed to Create an Instant VM in VMware Due to Duplicate NFS Data store Name

Symptom

Instant VM creation fails with the following error:

Failed to create NFS-based data store [arcserve_UDP_<Hostnam/IP>] with the NFS Share Name [arcserve_UDP_IVM_{GUID}]. Error code: 12. Error message: The specified key, name, or identifier already exists (details: ).

The reason for this error could be that an NFS data store with the same name already exist and it is not removed, or the vCenter/Host still has references of the NFS data store in its records. However, when you log into the host directly you see an NFS data store. This datastore is most likely marked as inactive and greyed out.

Solution

To resolve this issue:

  1. Log in to the ESX host and remove the NFS data store.
  2. Restart the management agents on that ESX host using the following command:

    3. /sbin/services.sh restart

For more information on working on the ESX host, see the VMware documentation.