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NVP vProxy: VM restore to VMware VSAN ESA Datastores fail with "VM failed with error The virtual disk is either corrupted or not a supported format. "

Summary: Virtual Machine (VM) backups are configured through the NetWorker VMware Protection (NVP) vProxy appliance. The VMs reside on vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA) datastores. VM backups complete successfully but restores fail returning an "unsupported format" error. ...

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Symptoms

  • VMware VMs are configured on vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA) datastores
  • VM backups complete successfully
  • VM Image Restores fail with the following error logged in the recover session log:
2023-08-15T11:21:36Z TRACE:  [@(#) Build number: 151] VMDK backing filename is being reconfigured to be: "[vsanDatastore] VM_NAME/VM_NAME_1.vmdk" with the size 53687091200
2023-08-15T11:21:36Z INFO:   [@(#) Build number: 151] Task to reconfigure new vm started....
2023-08-15T11:21:36Z ERROR:  [@(#) Build number: 151] Task to reconfigure new VM failed with error The virtual disk is either corrupted or not a supported format.
  • vSAN ESA 8.0 U1 or older
  • NetWorker 19.8.x or older

Cause

NetWorker 19.8.x (or older) does not support NetWorker VMware Protection of VMs on vSAN ESA datastores.
Backups of VMs residing on vSAN ESA 8.0 U1 (or older) are not supported.

Resolution

NetWorker 19.9 (and onwards) supports backups of VMs residing on vSAN ESA 8.0 U2A datastores.

Ensure that vSAN ESA is at least 8.0 U2A, and NetWorker is at least 19.9 with the latest 4.3.x (or later) vProxy appliance. 

See the NetWorker compatibility matrix for any changes in supportability: https://elabnavigator.dell.com/eln/modernHomeAutomatedTiles?page=NetWorker 

Workaround:

Recover the VM to a local VMware datastore. Once the VM restore has completed successfully, vMotion the recovered VM from the local VMware datastore to the vSAN ESA datastore.

Affected Products

NetWorker

Products

NetWorker Family, NetWorker Series
Article Properties
Article Number: 000217197
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 07 Oct 2025
Version:  4
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