Fail to import ova file to VMware Player

Question

I downloaded an OVA file from SDN-Hub, and used VMWare Player 11 to import it.

It came out with this error message:

Error while converting to a virtual machine:
Line 96:Unsupported element 'StorageItem'
Line 105:Unsupported element 'StorageItem'
Line 114:Unsupported element 'EthernetPortItem'

It's weird, because I downloaded the same file a few months ago in my other computer, and it worked well.

score 67 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 30 '15 at 05:25

67

Seems the problem is related to the OVF format, the virtual machine was exported using OVF 2.0

What I did to import it to vmware was to import the sdn-hub vm into virtual box and export it again using OVF format 1.0.

Then vmware was happy importing the machine, and just works fine

answered Mar 30 '15 at 05:25

Luis

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21

It's a pity they haven't fixed this, after 4 years (not sure whether it's VirtualBox or VMWare at fault). – Richard Whitehead Sep 12 '19 at 09:25
9

Still a problem in 2022. – datu-puti May 10 '22 at 12:22
1

Even extracting vmdk from ovf doesn't work! It will be read only file system, no way to fix this – megapro17 Sep 17 '22 at 00:04
1

vmware should have this in their docs stupid of them to rely on third party online forums...... – SoloOrchid Sep 19 '22 at 16:03

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 24 '23 at 07:29

When you go to export from the virtual box, it gives you the option to choose a format; 0.9 or 1.1 versions. I chose v1.1 for my CSI Linux ova on the virtual machine and it was converted straight to another ovs file of the format I chose and to a dir of my choice. I then uploaded this into my VMware Workstation Player 17 and it is working perfectly.

GM.

Fail to import ova file to VMware Player

2 Answers2