VMWare ESX Server error: An invalid snapshot configuration was detected

While trying to create a snapshot on a host I received an error: 

An invalid snapshot configuration error occurred. 

Tech support was good and walked me through the resolution:

# vmware-cmd -l

[gets a listing of hosts and filesystem paths and combine the host that you are getting the error on with the vmware-cmd command:

# vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/45j2fdb8-42a8bc40-dd01-0019bbca5388/host.com/host.com.vmx hassnapshot

[if there are no snapshots you will see this output]

hassnapshot() = 1

# ls -la *vmsd
-rw------- 1 root root 477 Sep 19 19:49 host.com.vmsd

# mv host.com.vmsd host.com.vmsd.bak

then issue the snapshot command.