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Good morning/afternoon/evening all:

I am having an issue with a single Virtual machine when it comes to exporting an OVA/OVF. I recieve a "File not found" error that appears to be pointing in the wrong directory...My process is

  • Clone Live virtual machine
  • Export OVA/OVF of the Cloned Machine

I have had no issue cloning 8 different Virtual Machines this way and exporting the data. I am only experiencing this issue with a single VM and I cannot figure out where the issue lies. Exact steps are below with work-arounds that I have tried.

Virtual machine name = RHEL_TEST_SERVER

Cloned VM Name = tmp_test_server

  • Clone virtual Machine
  • export OVF/OVA of the cloned VM

  • I receive an error immediately after I hit "OK" on the Export OVF Template screen. The error states:

    File ds:///vmfs/volumes/5876b9586-hf756475-c8193846734/RHEL_TEST_SERVER/[] was not found

It appears that when I Clone the OVA, it is setting ide1 (inside of tmp_test_server.vmx) to

ide1:0.fileName = ":///vmfs/volumes/5876b9586-hf756475-c8193846734/RHEL_TEST_SERVER/[]"

which I believe to be incorrect. It should be pointing to itself? I ssh into the ESXI/Linux server and navigate to that specific directory.

Even after I modify this file to point to itself, I still receive the same error of "File not found" (exact error as above). I cannot figure out why this is not working for this single Virtual Machine clone.

To answer the obvious question

  • yes I have deleted and re-cloned the virtual machine countless times (same error everytime)

Linux environment completely, and I have full access to see all files. If someone could please enlighten me on what the possible issue is and how I can fix it, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

IT_User
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5 Answers5

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Please check there must be a ISO attached with the VM. Remove the ISO file and try exporting the OVF again.

Arvind Pratap Singh
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  • I think you are right. Please be a little bit more verbose in you answer - explain why you think so, so others can benefit from your knowledge. – Nils May 22 '17 at 08:27
  • Hard to look back 3 years but I believe this was ultimately the issue. Thank you! And sorry it took so long to accept the answer! – IT_User Jun 09 '19 at 17:50
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to export into OVF file , firstly choose use physicaldrive's connection instead use iso image file, after you click on OK. enter image description here it works

abdellatif EL GHARABAOUI
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As a workaround,

  1. Logon with WinSCP
  2. Copy vmdk files under /vmfs/volumes/<ID>/.
Ivan Chau
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On facing the same issue when converting a VM for VMWare to ovf format, i was able to resolve it. The host running the OVF Tool is MacBook Pro 15 with macOS Mojave.

Below are the steps

Open the .vmx file in a editor (e.g. Atom). Find the missing file from the error 

sata0:1.fileName = [path of the missing file]

In the same section locate

sata0:1.present = "TRUE"

change this to

sata0:1.present = "FALSE"

Now when the tool is run, it will not go looking for the iso image. This should enable the tool to run successfully.

NOTE: for me, I have received the VM without the ISO image, another options that might just work if the ISO image is a must

  • Copying the ISO image along with VM
  • Try running the tool, but I doubt it will work, as the file might not be in the same location.
  • In that case, perform the above steps, and then mount the VM once the export is done
Sahil
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In my Fedora 28, install "libnsl" for ovftool to work!!!

It's Work!!! Solved

Guilherme Silva
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