[VCDR] Virtual Machine Snapshot may fail in VCDR recovery with error "VMX file size is too big"
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[VCDR] Virtual Machine Snapshot may fail in VCDR recovery with error "VMX file size is too big"

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Article ID: 313716

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Updated On:

Products

VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

  • Following error may be seen in the VCDR UI

    Error Severity Warning Timestamp Nov-07 02:01 am7h ago Target VMCAWS Linux - VMDR Description Failed to backup VM 'VM Name' (/UUID/VM Name.vmx) during stage: finishing backup, for task: drc-UUID. VM VM Name snapshot failed. Internal error: VMX file size is too big. Please contact support.

    Or 

    Description Failed to backup VM 'VM Name' (/VM Name/VM Name.vmx) during stage: performing backup, for task: drc-########-####-####-####-########45f9. VM bisecpdbm snapshot failed. Internal error: VMX file size is 55370 bytes which exceeds the max supported small file size 53320 bytes. Please contact support.

    drcMgr.log 
[SnappleServer.DRCTasks:0] [DRC] [drc-UUID] Task drc-mgr-UUID is started for VM[/UUID/VM Name.vmx] for task
 [SnappleServer.DRCTasks:0] [DRC] Task drc-mgr-UUID failed: Error VM_BACKUP_FAILED (6900): Failed to backup VM '[WorkloadDatastore] UUID/<VM name.vmx>' (VM Name): VM <VM Name> snapshot failed. Internal error: VMX file size is too big. Please contact support. (Created at DRCAgentSvc.java:5147)
 [SnappleServer.DRCTasks:0] __ERR__ [DRC] [drc-UUID] Backup task drc-mgr-UUID failed.
  • Manual snapshot succeeds on the same VM from either vCenter or ESXi host.

Impact/Risks:
VM protection will be impacted as VCDR cannot take snapshots.

Cause

The failure is due to a larger VMX file size caused by guestInfo.appInfo information from the appInfo plugin. This is an application tool that is dumping alot of info into the VMX file. VCDR has a  hard 55K limits on the VMX file size due to the way they are stored on the underlying filesystem.

Resolution

  • Schedule a maintenance window for the VM and disable appinfo plugin via VMware tools configuration file at the VM level.

  • To disable appInfo plugin, login to the guest with admin credentials

    Linux Guest 

vmware-toolbox-cmd config set appInfo disabled true 
OR
vmware-toolbox-cmd config set appinfo poll-interval 0

Windows Guest

VMwareToolboxCmd.exe config set appInfo disabled true 
OR
VMwareToolboxCmd.exe config set appInfo poll-interval 0

  • After disabling the appInfo plugin, please shutdown and power-on the virtual machine to remove the data from .vmx file. 
 
Note: Guest restart or reboot will not remove the data from .vmx
 
For additional information about appInfo plugin refer VMware tools documentation

Additional Information