VMware Converter VM and distributed portgroups: failed to poweron vm

When converting a physical Linux server using VMware Converter Standalone the following error message might be displayed if you're using distributed portgroups:

1A general system error occured: failed to poweron vm

I found a hint that indicated that the amount of used vCPUs or cores exceeds the license limit of the ESXi host. But in my case this was not the error cause.

I used another distributed portgroup during the Converter assistant. Afterwards the helper VM wasn't able to convert the source server because it was connected to another network - but the VM booted successfully.

Solving this issue was easy - I started the conversion using the wrong distributed portgroup. Before the conversion is started an appropriate VM is created, reconfigured and started on the ESXi host/cluster. After the VM was started the network configuration needs to be altered - and this made the trick.

But - to be honest - it would have been much better to find the actual reason for this issue. 🙂