Problem scope and background
ESXi 6.x after last unclear shuttdown stopped to boot. Loading was hanging on "ntfs4client" screen.
Alt+F1 showed following error message:
jumpstart: bora/lib/vmkctl/system/SystemInfoImpl.cpp:1511: virtual void VmkCtl::System::SystemInfoImpl::SetupSymlinks(bool, bool): Assertion `locker.get()` failed.
Reason
Problem leads to damaged swap file, most likely because of power-outage, swap file is marked as 'locked' and hypervisor couldn't deal with situation. Other possible reason is due to Swap Parser bug - due to file corruption, we see Assertion Failure and process silently quits.
Solution
Boot ESXi installer. Hit ALT+F1 to open Console.
Enter "root" and press Enter twice.
cd to /vmfs/volume/
cd to system datastore (which contains swp files/vswp files)
rm *.swp
rm *.vswp
Not sure if need to remove just a *.swp or both *.swp *.vswp - i removed both and booting went OK, having no excess time checking the exact nature of problem.
Best Regards,
Piotr Karwowski