Error: "Null value was assigned to a property of primitive type setter of com.vmware.vcloud.common.model.VmSnapshotViewModel.snapshotUid" when attempting to view or delete snapshots

Products

• VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

• After upgrading to Cloud Director 10.6 you cannot view or delete snapshots of Virtual Machine (VM) inside VMware Cloud Director (VCD) User Interface (UI).
• However, the snapshots can be viewed inside vCenter and looks correct.
• You receive an error message in the VCD UI when attempting to view, delete or manage snapshots:

Null value was assigned to a property of primitive type setter of com.vmware.vcloud.common.model.VmSnapshotViewModel.snapshotUid
Error: "[ ####-####-####-####-#### ] Internal Server Error - (vmodl.fault.ManagedObjectNotFound) { faultCause = null, faultMessage = null, obj =ManagedObjectReference: type = VirtualMachineSnapshot, value = snapshot-####, serverGuid = null } - The object 'vim.vm.Snapshot:snapshot-####' has already been deleted  or has not been completely created" when attempting to delete snapshots of Virtual Machine(VM).

or

Http failure response for https://cloud.example.com/cloudapi/1.0.0/vm/urn:vcloud:vm:<vm_id>/snapshots?page=1&pageSize=128&links=true: 500 OK

or

vApp/VM reached its snapshot limit of <limit_number>

• Need to delete orphaned snapshot from the database.
• "There no snapshots available for this VM" message and "Error" message are displayed on the virtual machines snapshot UI (vApps -> VM Name -> Snapshots).
• You will see a mismatch of the total space consumption between vCenter and VCD
• When you try to create a snapshot even though there are no snapshots present for the VM in the VCD UI, you come across the following error message:
  
  "Exceeded the maximum number of permitted snapshots" 
  
  
• Unable to snapshot VM.

Environment

VMware Cloud Director 10.6.x

Cause

VMware Cloud Director 10.6 introduced the ability to have more than 1 snapshot.

This issue occurs when snapshots exist in VMware Cloud Director's database that don't exist in vCenter Server. This can be caused by a snapshot being created in Cloud Director and deleted in vSphere.

Resolution

This issue has been resolved in Cloud Director 10.6.1.1 which is available to download here.

Important Notes:

• Starting with version 10.6.1, a design change was introduced in Cloud Director, where it actively synchronizes snapshot data from the underlying vCenter. As part of this enhancement, Cloud Director now calculates storage usage—including snapshots—based on information retrieved via the vCenter Snapshot API.

• As a result, storage consumed by snapshots, including those created temporarily by backup solutions, is now counted against the Org VDC’s allocated storage. This can lead to a reduction in reported available storage, even when the snapshots are short-lived or managed externally.

• While this behavior is by design in version 10.6.1, it has led to unexpected storage accounting scenarios. This behavior was further refined and addressed in version 10.6.1.1 to improve accuracy and usability.

• Environments that have been upgraded to 10.6.1.1 can still retaining orphaned snapshot records from before the upgrade. 

Additional Information

Cloud Director 10.6.1.1 release introduced the hideExternalSnapshots feature to modify the behavior surrounding external snapshot visibility. Refer to Tenant Storage Quota Increases Unexpectedly During Snapshot Operations in VCD 10.6.x for additional information.