[Acronis for VMware 9.2.10571] - Failed to quiesce the virtual machine, but only on one host

Thread needs solution
Neil Myers
Forum Member
Posts: 20
Comments: 44

Hi,

I have a vCenter 6.0 with two hosts (both ESXi 6.0.0, 3825889). Using ABVM 9.2.10571, all guests on the first host are backed up without issue. However, any running Windows guests on the 2nd host are not backed up with this error:

Error code: 32
Module: 0
LineInfo: c7610e0a857bedf4
Fields: 
Message: Awaiting task 'CreateSnapshot' has failed. Reason: An error occurred while saving the snapshot: Failed to quiesce the virtual machine..

VMTools is up to date on all guests.

If the Windows guests are suspended or shutdown, there is no issue. The backup completes successfully.

Non-Windows guests are not affected and are backed up whether running or not.

I've resorted to scripting "suspend" on all affected guests while the backup runs, and although this is not ideal, it does get around the issue.

Does anyone have a reason or solution for the issue? Is there some particular configuration setting on the host I may be overlooking?

 

Thanks in advance

 

Neil

Mon, 07/04/2016 - 09:17
0 Users found this helpful
Vasily Semyonov
Acronis Program Manager
Posts: 22
Comments: 3771

Hi Neil,

Usually problems with quiesced snapshot creation should be troubleshooted from vSphere environment, i.e. you can reproduce the problem via manual snapshot creation (quiesced=on, memory=off parameters) and once it fails, then check the logs inside the guest OS of the VM to see whether there were any VSS failures in the Windows event log. See also the troubleshooting steps (and related VMware KB articles) in our KB here: https://kb.acronis.com/content/4559

There is a brute-force workaround (typically VMware support suggests it) to disable quiescing inside the VM at all, so no matter whether quiescing parameter is ON or OFF, there will be no VSS used to quiesce the VM guest OS. Note that if you use this workaround then no application-aware backup of the VM will be possible - it will fail until you disable corresponding option in backup task settings.

Thank you.

Mon, 07/04/2016 - 12:55

Best regards,
Vasily
Acronis Virtualization Program Manager

Information provided AS-IS with no warranty of any kind.

To contact support, please follow http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/

Raphael
Regular Poster
Posts: 37
Comments: 352

Neil Myers wrote:

VMTools is up to date on all guests.

We hat a similar issue when backing up a running Windows 2008 R2. There is/was an issue with the installed VMware Tools version 10246. An update to VMware Tools version 10249 resolved this issue.

[cite]

  • Attempts to take a quiesced snapshot in a Windows Guest OS fails
    Attempts to take a quiesced snapshot after booting a Windows Guest OS fails with an error similar to the following in the vmware.log file.
    2016-04-16T03:05:22.371Z| vmx| I120: GuestRpcSendTimedOut: message to toolbox timed out.
    2016-04-16T03:05:22.371Z| vmx| I120: Msg_Post: Warning
    2016-04-16T03:05:22.371Z| vmx| I120: [msg.snapshot.quiesce.rpc_timeout] A timeout occurred while communicating with VMware Tools in the virtual machine.
    2016-04-16T03:05:22.371Z| vmx| I120: ----------------------------------------
    2016-04-16T03:05:22.374Z| vmx| I120: ToolsBackup: changing quiesce state: IDLE -> DONE
    2016-04-16T03:05:22.374Z| vmx| I120: SnapshotVMXTakeSnapshotComplete: Done with snapshot 'afea': 0
    2016-04-16T03:05:22.374Z| vmx| I120: SnapshotVMXTakeSnapshotComplete: Snapshot 0 failed: Failed to quiesce the virtual machine (40).
    2016-04-16T03:05:33.304Z| vmx| I120: GuestRpcSendTimedOut: message to toolbox timed out.
    2016-04-16T03:05:40.550Z| vmx| I120: Tools: Tools heartbeat timeout.
    2016-04-16T03:05:43.300Z| vmx| I120: GuestRpcSendTimedOut: message to toolbox-dnd timed out.
    2016-04-16T03:05:48.306Z| vmx| I120: GuestRpcSendTimedOut: message to toolbox timed out.

    The status of VMware Tools in the vSphere Client under the Summary Tab of the virtual machine gets changed to Not Running.

    This issue is resolved in this release.

[/cite]

https://pubs.vmware.com/Release_Notes/en/vmwaretools/1009/vmware-tools-…

Thu, 07/14/2016 - 17:05
Products: Acronis Cyber Protect