vVOL VMs running in snapshot mode cannot be managed
search cancel

vVOL VMs running in snapshot mode cannot be managed

book

Article ID: 405400

calendar_today

Updated On:

Products

VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms

  • The Virtual Machine summary page displays the following alert:
    "Some of the disks of the virtual machine failed to load. The information present for them in the virtual machine configuration file may be incomplete."

  • The snapshot manager does not show any existing snapshots for the virtual machine.

  • Attempts to consolidate snapshots fail with the error: "Detected an invalid snapshot configuration."

  • Attempts to create a new snapshot for the VM fail.

  • In the VM Edit Settings, all Hard Disks report a capacity of 0 bytes.

  • Reviewing the Hard Disk details shows that all VMDK files are incorrectly pointing to snapshot disks rather than the base disks.

  • The affected VM is powered on and running on a vvol datastore.

  • The issue is isolated to a single VM. No issues are found with the vvol storage configuration or the datastore itself

 

Environment

VMware ESXi 7.x
VMware ESXi 8.x

Cause

This issue occurs when a quiesced snapshot attempt fails on a virtual machine residing on a vvol or vSAN datastore.

If the Guest OS quiescing process fails during snapshot creation, a synchronization error can occur where a snapshot is successfully created at the storage level, but the associated VMDK descriptor files are incorrectly removed or not updated.

As a result:

  • The VMX configuration file continues to reference snapshot descriptors that no longer exist on the datastore.
  • The virtual machine is unable to map the underlying storage, causing disks to report as 0B  in the inventory.
  • The disk chain becomes inconsistent or corrupted, preventing further snapshot management or consolidation.

Cause Validation:

Review vmware.log for quiescing Failures. The issue begins with a failed quiesced snapshot attempt.

2025-11-08T05:20:27.164Z In(05) vmx - [msg.snapshot.quiesce.vmerr] The guest OS has reported an error during quiescing.
2025-11-08T05:20:27.164Z In(05)+ vmx - The error code was: 4
2025-11-08T05:20:27.164Z In(05)+ vmx - The error message was: Quiesce canceled.
2025-11-08T05:20:27.164Z In(05) vmx - ----------------------------------------
2025-11-08T05:20:27.166Z In(05) vmx - ToolsBackup: changing quiesce state: FINISHING_2 -> ERROR_WAIT
2025-11-08T05:20:27.166Z In(05) vmx - ToolsBackup: changing quiesce state: ERROR_WAIT -> IDLE
2025-11-08T05:20:27.166Z In(05) vmx - ToolsBackup: changing quiesce state: IDLE -> DONE
2025-11-08T05:20:27.166Z In(05) vmx - VVolObjNotifySnapshotDone: isEnabled: 1
2025-11-08T05:20:27.166Z In(05) vmx - VigorTransport_ServerSendResponse opID=4ed43ba5-33-23ec seq=247887: Completed Snapshot.Take request with messages in 941980138 US.

Immediately following the quiescing failure, subsequent snapshot or backup tasks will fail because the VMX is looking for descriptor files that were deleted during the failed cleanup.

2025-11-08T05:20:28.091Z In(05) vmx - SnapshotVMX_TakeSnapshot start: '__BACKUP__', deviceState=0, lazy=0, quiesced=0, forceNative=0, tryNative=1, saveAllocMaps=0
2025-11-08T05:20:28.092Z In(05) vmx - 12345930:VVOLLIB : VVolLib_IsVectoredSnapSupported:14372: VVolLib_IsVectoredSnapSupported: vvolVectoredSnapEnabled: 1
2025-11-08T05:20:28.092Z In(05)+ vmx -
2025-11-08T05:20:28.092Z In(05) vmx - VVolObjNotifySnapshotPrepare: Changing state to VEC_SNAP_PREPARE_IN_PROG.
2025-11-08T05:20:28.092Z In(05) vmx - OBJLIB-VVOLOBJ :VVolObjNotifySnapshotPrepare: Building in-mem cache
2025-11-08T05:20:28.099Z In(05) vmx - SNAPSHOT: SnapshotConfigExtFinder: Unable to find file: 'vm1-000001.vmdk'
2025-11-08T05:20:28.105Z Er(02) vmx - DISKLIB-LINK  : DiskLinkCreateNativeDesc: Parent is set to self '/vmfs/volumes/vvol:1524f8exxxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/rfc4122.48ffbb3a-####-####-####-############/vm1-000001.vmdk'.
2025-11-08T05:20:28.105Z Er(02) vmx - DISKLIB-LINK  : DiskLinkPrepareNativeSnap: Failed to create native descriptor: One of the parameters supplied is invalid
2025-11-08T05:20:28.105Z Er(02) vmx - DISKLIB-LINK  : DiskLinkPrepareNativeSnapCBInt: Failed to prepare native snapshot of '/vmfs/volumes/vvol:1524f8exxxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/rfc4122.48ffbb3a-####-####-####-############/vm1-000001.vmdk': One of the parameters supplied is invalid
2025-11-08T05:20:28.105Z Er(02) vmx - DISKLIB-LIB_CREATE   :DiskLibPrepareOrCreateChildNativeSnap: Failed to prepare snapshot: One of the parameters supplied is invalid

Review the virtual machine configuration file (.vmx). The hard disks will be pointing to snapshot delta files (e.g., -00000X.vmdk) even though no snapshots are present in the Snapshot Manager and the files themselves do not exist on the datastore:

scsi0:0.fileName = "vm1-000001.vmdk"
scsi0:1.fileName = "vm1_1-000002.vmdk"

Resolution

This is a known issue affecting VMs on vvol and vSAN datastores. The issue has been officially resolved in ESXi 8.0 Update 3h (Build 25067014). To prevent future occurrences of disk chain corruption during quiesced snapshot failures, upgrade all affected ESXi hosts to ESXi 8.0 Update 3h or later

If an immediate upgrade is not possible, follow these steps to manually repair the virtual machine's disk chain and restore management functionality.

Caution: Before proceeding, ensure you have a valid backup of the virtual machine. These steps involve manual modification of configuration files.

  1. Power off the affected virtual machine.

  2. Navigate to the virtual machine directory on the datastore.

  3. Create a backup folder: mkdir backup

  4. Move all stale snapshot files (-00000x.vmdk) and change tracking files (.ctk.vmdk) into the backup folder.

  5. Create a backup copy of the original .vmx file.

  6. Edit the .vmx file to point the virtual device entries back to the base disks instead of the missing snapshot descriptors.

    • Example Change:

      • From: scsi0:0.fileName = "vm1-000001.vmdk"

      • To: scsi0:0.fileName = "vm1.vmdk" 

  7. Open each base .vmdk descriptor file in a text editor and remove ddb.objectParentUri entry if present:

    # Disk DescriptorFile
    version=4
    encoding="UTF-8"
    CID=25018c36
    parentCID=ffffffff
    createType="vmfs"

    # Extent description
    RW 209715200 VMFS "vvol://6bb7###b97/naa.600#####4c73"

    # The Disk Data Base
    #DDB

    ddb.objectParentUri = "vvol://6bb7#######b97/naa.600#########4058"     >>>> need to be removed
    ddb.thinProvisioned = "1"

    Reason: This entry may still reference the invalid VVol/vSAN snapshot object, preventing the disk from loading correctly.

  8. Register/Reload the VM configuration in vCenter.

  9. Power on the virtual machine.

  10. Verify that the hard disks now reflect the correct capacity 

  11. Take a new manual snapshot and immediately perform a Consolidate to ensure the disk chain is healthy.

Powered by Wolken Software