Quiesced Snapshot operation fails on Red Hat Guest OS with "Error initializing quiesce operation"

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• When creating a Quiesced Snapshot through the vSphere Web Client for a RedHat Guest OS VM, the task fails with an error -
  

  An error occurred while quiescing the virtual machine. See the virtual machine's event log for details

• The following log entry is recorded in the VM log file
  Log Location - /vmfs/volumes/Datastore_name/VM_name/vmware.log



  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS In(05) vmx 20004ee4-f8-cf10 VVolObjNotifySnapshotPrepare: Changing state to VEC_SNAP_PREPARE_IN_PROG.
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS In(05) vmx 20004ee4-f8-cf10 OBJLIB-VVOLOBJ :VVolObjNotifySnapshotPrepare: Building in-mem cache
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS Er(02) vmx 20004ee4-f8-cf10 DecryptWithPadding: Failed due to a discrepancy between the padding value and the length of the data
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS In(05) vmx 20004ee4-f8-cf10 SNAPSHOT: SnapshotPrepareTakeDoneCB: Prepare phase complete (The operation completed successfully).
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS Er(02) vmx 20004ee4-f8-cf10 DecryptWithPadding: Failed due to a discrepancy between the padding value and the length of the data
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS In(05) vcpu-1 - Msg_Post: Warning
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS In(05) vcpu-1 - [msg.snapshot.quiesce.startfail] Failed to start quiescing operation in the virtual machine.
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS In(05)+ vcpu-1 - The error message was: Error initializing quiesce operation.
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS In(05) vcpu-1 - ----------------------------------------
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS In(05) vcpu-1 - ToolsBackup: changing quiesce state: IDLE -> DONE

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi
VMware vCenter Server

Cause

This issue could occur if the VMTools sync driver is disabled in the Guest OS

Resolution

To resolve this issue, enable the VMware Tools sync driver inside the Guest OS. 

 

1. Login to the RedHat virtual machine and open a terminal or SSH in to the VM. 
2. Open the VMware Tools configuration file using vi text editor: 
   

   vi /etc/vmware-tools/tools.conf

3. Locate the following section:
   

   [vmbackup]
   enableSyncDriver = false

4. Change the value from false to true: 


   [vmbackup]
   enableSyncDriver = true

5. Save and exit the file : 
   

   :wq!

6. Restart VMware Tools service for the changes to take effect
   

   systemctl restart vmtoolsd