An error occurred while quiescing the virtual machine

acronisbackupvmware-servervmware-vspherevss

I got an backup issue on one of my VM.
Here is the current situation:

Using Acronis backup to backup my VM

vmProtect 9
Server I want to get backup is

Windows 2003 Server Standard Edition Service Pack2
Using vSphere client to manage my VMs

vSphere Client Version 5.1.0
When backup ran, it failed with error an message under "Create virtual machine snapshot" stage.

"An error occurred while quiescing the virtual machine. See the virtual machine's event log for details."
Tried following:
- Rebooted the server -> issue still exist
- Install/Upgraded VMware tools
  
  Installed and updated by using:
  vSphere -> right click server -> Guest -> Install/Upgrade VMware Tools
  But issue still exist
- Uninstalled and re-installed VMware tools
  
  Rebooted the box after the re-installation but still getting same error message.
- Checked "vssadmin list writers" on the actual virtual machine
  
  all VSS writers are:
  State: [1] Stable
  Last error: No error
- Checked Event log (Event Viewer) on the actual virtual machine
  
  In Application log, warning message found as following:
  a) [ warning] [vmvss:vmvss] CVmSnapshotRequestor::WaitForOperation():2563: Async operation result: Operation aborted
  
  Information message found as following:
  a) The Volume Shadow Copy service was successfully sent a start control.
  b) The Volume Shadow Copy service entered the running state.
- Confirmed I can create snapshot without "Quiesce guest file system" option, but Acronis backup need this option to be on.
Due to Creating snapshot fails with "Quiesce guest file system" option on in vSphere, I believe that backup is failing at VM level and not at Acronis level

Thank you for reading this and any help or advise will be greatly appreciated.

Best Answer

There are a number of errors that may be raised when working with snapshots, some of them are general (not related to a specific guest OS) and some are related to MS Windows family of OSs. Most of the times, generic problems are fixed by just consolidating the VM or removing all snapshots. Switching the guest OS off and consolidating and/or removing snapshots suffices most of the times. We have written a complete guide on what to do in this cases: https://33hops.com/esxi-snapshot-errors-and-solutions.html

There is a well known bug that affects Microsoft's OS and renders the exact symptoms you are describing. It's not clear whose fault it is VMWare/ Microsoft, as they blame each other and the problem has not been solved so far, and probably will never be solved. Details here: https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2006849

The good news is that this bug/ problem, only affects MBR based installations, thus if you use a GPT boot disk, snapshotting and quiescing will work flawlessly. The thing is, what do you do if your OS is MBR based and you can't reinstall everything. You have two options:

1 - Renounce to quiesce the OS, which might not be an option, if you are running database or e-mail servers per instance.

2 - Convert your MBR partition to a GPT one without data loss. There are a number of tools out there, but this is a free solution and has worked for us so far http://sabrnet.wzk.cz/2015/03/convert-windows-system-mbr-disk-to-gpt-with-efi-without-data-loss/

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System State Backups using NTbackup fail with error 0x800423f4 (relating to volume shadow copy)

Microsoft seems to have issued a hotfix for this problem and error code. I would test it well, though.

VSS error 521 when attempting backup

Try running the DOS command "vssadmin list writers" and "vss admin list providers". Capture the output of these command, as they will help in debugging the issue. If a particular writer reports any unexpected state, search the web for conditions that may be causing this issue.

A quick way to reset the writers is to reboot the server.

If VSS errors continue to persist, try re-registering VSS. Follow the steps outlined in MS KB article 940184. Doublecheck for other VSS providers, i.e. any backup software that installs any sort of Open File agent (examples would be St Bernard, older versions of Backup Exec Open File Option, etc). These can be shown by typing "vssadmin list providers" at a command prompt. Providers from uninstalled software can be deleted by removing the offending CLSID of the VSS provider and rebooting the machine.

Is the machine a 64-bit machine? Are you getting "A function call was invalid because of the state of either the backup extensions or the coordinator. For example calling AddToSnapshot set prior to calling StartSnapshotSet." ? If so, try deleting the Subscription key per MS KB 940184

  1.    Click Start, click Run, type Regedit, and then click OK.
  2.    Locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\EventSystem\{26c409cc-ae86-11d1-b616-00805fc79216\Subscriptions
  3.    On the Edit menu, click Delete, and then click Yes to confirm that you want to delete the subkey.
  4.    Exit Registry Editor.
  5.    Reboot the machine

Next you can try running a utility called vshadow. It's part of the windows SDK.

To do a single manual snapshot, run

vshadow [drive letter]

which would take and immediately destroy a VSS snapshot of C: and D:. If that works, VSS is probably OK; if not it's a VSS problem.

All of this is where I would start to troubleshoot VSS problems.

As with anything, be extremely careful when modifying the registry

Best Answer

Related Solutions

System State Backups using NTbackup fail with error 0x800423f4 (relating to volume shadow copy)

VSS error 521 when attempting backup

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