VM Error (Solved): This virtual machine appears to be in use. press the "Take Ownership" button to obtain ownership of it.

How did I bump into it?

Windows updates were done and my system restarted. The connected VMs crashed during the reboot.

This is common, and will happen whenever the system is abruptly shutdown or the host machine crashes.

When you attempt to re-connect to your VM after restart, an error message is thrown as below

This virtual machine appears to be in use.If this virtual machine is already in use, press the "Cancel" button to avoid damaging it. If this virtual machine is not in use, press the "Take Ownership" button to obtain ownership of it.

Solution: (Windows) 

1. Locate your virtual machine files (.vmdk) there would be a folder for lock files. Lock files have the extension .lck.
2. Delete the lck file. Try starting the VM.

Significance of lock files [Thanks to info on www.vmware.com]

• When a VM is started lock files are created. These files are created so that consistency is maintained on virtual disks considering the case of multiple VMs and hence multiple reads and writes.

• When a VM is powered off in a routine manner the lock files are also deleted. In case it is not powered off properly, a stale lock will be maintained to protect the VMDK file. When the VM is started / resumed again, the stale lock will be removed.

• To make sure no other VM is accessing the lock file, the following conditions are checked.

• The lock was created on the same host where the VM is running

• The process that created the lock is not running

• If the above conditions are satisfied, the stale lock is safely removed. But if one of the conditions is false, an error dialog is displayed saying the VM cannot be powered on / resumed.

• In such cases, if one is sure, the lock file can be deleted, to resume the VM.

Hope this helps.