VMware Converter: The Session Does Not Have The Required Permissions

Photo by John Salvino on Unsplash

So this is one I’ve struggle with A LOT over the last couple of months. Migrating a ton of VMs manually isn’t easy on the best of days, but when this issue occurs, the extra work is just a pain!

I thought I would put this into an article as I know someone has to find this useful too…

After hours of searching and pulling my hair out, the error message actually belongs to this KB article. Please VMware, please make these error messages better 🫠

The error below, is typically caused by CTK files in the directory of the VM and CBT being enabled:

FAILED: An error occurred during the conversion: ‘The session does not have the required permissions’

Basically, the way we fix this issue to 3 parts:

1. Delete any snapshots or move them into a separate folder.
2. Delete or move the CTK files into a separate folder.
3. Disable CBT on the VM.

Lets start!

First, login to the VMware host running the VM that has this issue. Don’t use vSphere as it can often fail.

Head over to the datastore and folder that the VM resides in and create a new folder called CTK