Virtual Machine snapshot removal task is stuck with Error: Another task is already in progress

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware vSphere ESX 8.x
• VMware vSphere ESX 7.x

Issue/Introduction

Task gets pilled up and stuck with Error " Another task is already in progress"

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Cause

3rd Party Backup software was initiating snapshot removal task every 5 minutes once, while the initial task was still running.

 

Resolution

Wait for the consolidation task to either complete or fail, before triggering another job to remove snapshot.

1. Identify the VM IDs required for subsequent commands, and find the VMID for the corresponding VMs.
   vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms
2. Get the list of tasks associated with a particular VM.
vim-cmd vmsvc/get.tasklist VMID

3. Find out more about the task, including the process, completion time, etc.
vim-cmd vimsvc/task_info task_identifier
4. Try restarting ESXi management Agents to clear the task, Refer to below KB
   Restarting Management Agents in ESXi
   
   

Note: If we are not able to kill the stale task or clear it with management agent restart, we will have to eventually reboot the ESXi host by placing Host in maintenance mode.