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Cannot take a quiesced snapshot of Windows 2008 R2 virtual machine (1031298)

Details

When creating a snapshot on a Windows 2008 R2 virtual machine on ESXi/ESX 4.1 and higher, you may experience these symptoms:
  • The snapshot operation fails to complete.
  • You are unable to create a quiesced snapshot of the virtual machine.
  • You are unable to back up the virtual machine.
  • Cloning a Windows 2008 R2 virtual machine fails.
  • The Application section of the Event Viewer in the virtual machine Windows guest operating system may report a VSS error similar to:

    Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Unexpected error calling routine IOCTL_DISK_SET_SNAPSHOT_INFO(\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE1) fails with winerror 1168. hr = 0x80070490, Element not found.

  • Performing any process that creates a quiesced snapshot fails.
  • You see the error:

    Can not create a quiesced snapshot because the create snapshot operation exceeded the time limit for holding off I/O in the frozen virtual machine.

  • Backup applications, such as VMware Data Recovery, fail with the error:

    Failed to create snapshot for <vmname>, error -3960 (cannot quiesce virtual machine)

Solution

This is not a VMware issue.

This issue occurs due to a known issue with VSS application snapshots and ESXi/ESX 4.1 and later.

To work around this issue, disable VSS application-based snapshots and revert back to file system quiesced snapshots.

Notes:

Option 1 - Disable VSS application quiescing using the vSphere Client:
  1. Power off the virtual machine.
  2. Log into vCenter Server or the ESXi/ESX host through the vSphere Client.
  3. Right-click the virtual machine and click Edit settings.
  4. Click the Options tab.
  5. Go to Advanced > General > Configuration Parameters.
  6. Add or modify the row disk.EnableUUID with the value FALSE.
  7. Click OK to save.
  8. Click OK to exit.
  9. To make this change take effect when using the vSphere Client, reboot the virtual machine.

    Note: If this change is done via the command line, using the vim-cmd command and powering on the virtual machine is enough to see the changes. For more information, see Reloading a vmx file without removing the Virtual machine from inventory (1026043).

  10. You can also optionally unregister the virtual machine from the vCenter Server inventory. To unregister, right-click the virtual machine and click Remove from Inventory.
  11. Register the virtual machine. For more information, see Registering or adding a virtual machine to the inventory on vCenter Server or on an ESXi/ESX host (1006160).
  12. Power on the virtual machine.
Note: To configure the disk.EnableUUID parameter for VMware Data Protection (VDP), see the Resolution section in Backing up a Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual machine using VMware Data Protection 5.1 fails with the error: Execution Error: E10055:Failed to attach disk. (2035736).


Option 2 - Disable VSS application quiescing using VMware Tools:
  1. Open the C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Tools\Tools.conf file in a text editor, such as Notepad. If the file does not exist, create it.
  2. Add these lines to the file:

    [vmbackup]
    vss.disableAppQuiescing = true

  3. Save the file and exit the editor.
  4. Restart the VMware Tools Service for the changes to take effect. Click Start > Run, type services.msc, and click OK.
  5. Right-click the VMware Tools Service and click Restart.

Additional Information

  • For information on quiesced snapshots in VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB), see the Virtual Machine Backup Guide.
  • For information on quiesced snapshots in VMware Data Recovery (VDR), see the VMware Data Recovery Administration Guide.
  • There is a related known issue with vCenter Server installed on a Windows 2008 or 2008 R2 virtual machine with snapshots and the ADAM or NTDS instance which are used by vCenter Server:

    This issue is resolved in ESXi/ESX 4.1 Update 1. For more information, see the Backup section of the VMware ESX 4.1 Update 1 Release Notes.

  • In some cases, Windows 2008 R2 patches may update the Microsoft VSS drivers. If this occurs, reinstall VMware Tools so that the VMware VSS drivers can be used again.

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Tags

cannot-take-snapshot create-snapshot-fails take-snapshot

This Article Replaces

1030943

Update History

01/27/2012 - Added product versions from 1030943 and also added the symptoms to close out 1030943 as duplicate. 04/19/2011 - Added information that the issue resolved in ESX4.1 U1 07/18/2012 - Added the Event Viewer VSS error in Symptoms section 24/8/2012 - Added links to KB 1007696 and 1031200

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