I've been trying to clean out some out of date Linked clones "with issues" in a View 5.1 installation with "issues".
They are throwing thousands of errors:
The issue was triggered when I moved the Template that I created the linked clones from. Go to training on VMware View in a month...
I no longer need the clones, they were out of date, so I Deleted them from within the View Administrator WEB interface. The Status indicated Deleting - for two days.
This morning I tried to remove them via the sviconfig cmd. I would enter the cmd and it would return:
Get clone ID.
Sviconfig finished with an error. Exit code:4 (this after several minutes)
The operation timed out
Gave up on that attempt after about 45 minutes of trying.
Then I shut one of the Clones down and tired: Right Click Delete from disk. Didn't work, the clone disappeared from vCenter, but not the View Administrator Web page.
Then I right clicked them and "Deleted from Inventory". Same result, only now the View Admin WEB page says Status: Deleting (missing)
To quote a figure from history:
"Will someone help me get rid of this troublesome" - 
clone
Bryan
Arlington VA