This article provides steps to enable and disable Windows 2008 and 2012 virtual machine application-consistent quiescing.
Symptoms:
'VssSyncStart' operation failed: Operation aborted (0x80004004) warning"
2012-08-23T16:33:20.647Z [FFA18B90 verbose 'PropertyProvider' opID=CA0E7426-00005219-58] RecordOp ASSIGN: info.error, task-142530
2012-08-23T16:33:20.648Z [FFA18B90 info 'Default' opID=######26-0000####-58] [VpxLRO] -- FINISH task-142530 -- -- vpxapi.VpxaService.createSnapshot -- 5229b79e-ce92-3d72-81e9-c22f5ec4923d
2012-08-23T16:33:20.648Z [FFA18B90 info 'Default' opID=######26-0000####-58] [VpxLRO] -- ERROR task-142530 -- -- vpxapi.VpxaService.createSnapshot: vim.fault.ApplicationQuiesceFault:
vmware.log
: file, you see entries similar to:Error when notifying the sync provider
Quiesce operation aborted
[msg.snapshot.quiesce.vmerr] The guest OS has reported an error during quiescing
Note: The preceding log excerpts are only examples. Date, time, and environmental variables may vary depending on your environment.
In Windows 2008 or later versions, application-level quiescing is performed using a hardware snapshot provider.
After quiescing the virtual machine, the hardware snapshot provider creates two .REDO
logs per virtual machine disk, one for the live (ongoing or upcoming) virtual machine writes, and another for the VSS and Writers in the guest operating system to modify the disks after the snapshot operation is complete.
The snapshot configuration information of the virtual machine reports this second .REDO
log as part of the snapshot. This .REDO
log represents the quiesced state of all the applications in the guest.
Note: This .REDO
log must be opened using VDDK 1.2 to back it up. VDDK 1.1 fails to open this second .REDO
log for backup.
Application-consistent quiescing of Windows 2008 and later virtual machines is available when those virtual machines are created in vSphere 4.1, 5.x and 6.0.x. Virtual machines created in vSphere 4.0 can be updated to enable application-consistent quiescing by modifying a virtual machine’s EnableUUID
attribute.
To enable Windows 2008 and later virtual machine application-consistent quiescing:
disk.EnableUUID
.TRUE
.Note: To disable application-consistent quiescing, use these steps until step 8, and in step 9 enter FALSE
instead of TRUE
. Use the remaining steps afterward:
You can disable application quiescing without virtual machine downtime by making a configuration change within VMware tools: