Snapshot is corrupted after restoring backup from quiesced

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

To work around the issue of snapshot quiescing resulting in corrupt backups, disable MSSearch Service Writer and Disable Shadow Copy Optimization Writer OR disable Application Quiescing.

Symptoms:

After restoring a backup from a quiesced snapshot, the VM snapshot is corrupted. The chkdsk may report errors similar to:

Index entry ReportingEvents.log in index $I30 of file 12206 is incorrect.

Error detected in index $I30 for file 255.

Environment

VMware Virtual Disk Development 1.2

Cause

Resolution

This is a known issue affecting VMware Virtual Disk Development.

Currently, these is no resolution.

To work around this issue, use one of these options:

• Disable Shadow Copy Optimization Writer and MSSearch Service Writer. For more information on disabling VSS writers, see Disabling specific VSS writers with VMware Tools (1031200).
  
  These writers delete files from the snapshot to reduce the space needed for the snapshot.
  
  Notes:
  • This workaround can resolve or reduce the issue in some but not all cases.
  • These are not required for a VM quiesced snapshot as the snapshot is of the whole virtual disk.
    
• Disable Application Quiescing. For more information, see Enabling and disabling Windows 2008 and later application-consistent quiescing on ESXi/ESX (1028881).
  
  This will cause quiesced snapshots to be filesystem consistent instead of application consistent.

Additional Information

Enabling and disabling Windows 2008 and later application-consistent quiescing on ESXi/ESX
Disabling specific VSS writers with VMware Tools