Can't add VMs to Vsphere from NFS share

After losing power the night before last we have been having problems with our ESXi server.  Most have been resolved, but our biggest issue is that the VMs that are stored on an NFS share will not start.  The share is connected in VSphere and we can brows the folders that they are contained in but the .vmx files display a generic icon and the option to add them to inventory is grayed out.  No settings have changed so I don't know where to look to sort this out.
w00tixAsked:
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ianmellorConnect With a Mentor Commented:
Hi,

Please make a backup/copy of the vmregister.pl script. Then open the script and edit it. If you search for a line

filter => \%folder_filter

It will be below the following line

my $folder_view = Vim::find_entity_view(view_type => 'Folder',

Just put a # at the start of the line to comment out the line. Then run the script again.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
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ianmellorCommented:
Hi,

Can you register the vm via the RCLI?

vmregister.pl  --operation <register/unregister> [options]

Cheers,
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w00tixAuthor Commented:
Nope.  "vmregister.pl not found"
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ianmellorCommented:
Hi,

Can you look here and see if you can see the script

C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware vSphere CLI\Perl\samples\vm

Thanks,
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w00tixAuthor Commented:
Thank you for the quick replies.  Inside of C:\Program Files\VMware the only folder is "Infrastructure".  Seems like I'm missing out on some potentially important things.
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ianmellorCommented:
Hi,

No problem, you need to install VMware vSphere CLI, below is the link to the download. Once you have installed this you can then use it to manage your ESXi hosts.

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vcli/

Cheers,
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w00tixAuthor Commented:
I've got it installed now and I can run the script, but the "--operation" option isn't available and "--help" doesn't seem to contain anything that looks similar.
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ianmellorCommented:
Hi,

Try vmregister.pl --register <path to vmx>
http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/viperltoolkit/viperl15/doc/vmregister.html

Above is the link to the vmware doc.

Cheers,
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w00tixAuthor Commented:
I used the command and formatting from the bottom of that article and get the error "unknown option: operation".
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ianmellorCommented:
Hi,

Right, I have just run this script against a dev system and it is working.

.\vmregister.pl --server <server ip> --vmxpath "[<path to vmx] VM\VM.vmx"

it will ask for username and password.

Cheers,
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Paul SolovyovskySenior IT AdvisorCommented:
Browse the NFS share and ensure that you can add and delete a folder. Ensure that it's not in read only mode which will cause the VMs not to start up
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w00tixAuthor Commented:
The share is writable.  I was able to create a new VM in VSphere but couldn't start it or anything.  I tested to be sure though.

I am still trying out that command that ianmellor posted but can't seem to get the file path right for the .vmx file I want to load.  I should have it worked out soon though.
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w00tixAuthor Commented:
I finally got the command to work (first try of the new day!), but now I get the message "Filtering is only supported for simple types"
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