Quiescing snapshots in an ESXi host fails with the error: The guest OS has reported an error during quiescing. The error code was: 5 The error message was: Asynchronous operation failed: >VssSyncStart

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Quiescing snapshots in an ESXi host fails
• There are errors similar to:
  • The guest OS has reported an error during quiescing. The error code was: 5 The error message was: Asynchronous operation failed: >VssSyncStart
  • The guest OS has reported an error during quiescing. The error code was: 5 The error message was: 'VssSyncStart' operation failed: The >system cannot find the file specified. (0x80070002)
  • The guest OS has reported an error during quiescing. The error code was: 4 The error message was: Quiesce aborted.
  • in vmware.log , The error message was: 'VssSyncStart' operation failed: IDispatch error #8454 (0x80042306)
• If it is Windows guest, check if any writers are in failed \tied out or in error state using command vssadmin list writers in powershell.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7
VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.x

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0.x

Cause

Depending on the error code, there are multiple reasons to receive these message. 

Error: The guest OS has reported an error during quiescing. The error code was: 4 The error message was: Quiesce aborted. 
Reason: Error code is 4 - VMBACKUP_REMOTE_ABORT. The backup was intentionally aborted or when when quiesced snapshot times out.

Error: The guest OS has reported an error during quiescing. The error code was: 5 The error message was: 'VssSyncStart' operation failed: The system cannot find the file specified. (0x80070002) 
Error: The guest OS has reported an error during quiescing. The error code was: 5 The error message was: 'VssSyncStart' operation failed: The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it. (0x80070422) 
Reason: Error code: is 5 - VMBACKUP_UNEXPECTED_ERROR.
Both errors above are thrown by Microsoft Service Control Manager. This requires more investigation of the guest OS logs.

Resolution

As a workaround, disable quiescing or application quiescing. See Enabling and disabling Windows 2008 and later application-consistent quiescing on ESXi/ESX

Additional Information

For more information, see:

Troubleshooting Volume Shadow Copy (VSS) quiesce related issues
Unable to take a quiesced VMware snapshot of a virtual machine
Cannot create a quiesced snapshot because the snapshot operation exceeded the time limit for holding off I/O in the frozen virtual machine