vVOL VMs running in snapshot mode cannot be managed

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• Following a failed snapshot quiesce task, a VM on vVOL storage crashes, shows 0B for all disks and cannot be powered on.

Environment

VMware ESXi 7.x
VMware ESXi 8.x

Cause

If quiescing the guest OS fails during snapshot creation of a VM on vVOL storage, but a snapshot is taken, the vmdk descriptors may be incorrectly removed. 

vmware.log reports 

vmx - [msg.snapshot.quiesce.vmerr] The guest OS has reported an error during quiescing.
vmx - The error code was: 4
vmx - The error message was: Quiesce canceled.
vmx - SnapshotVMXTakeCleanup: DiskLib_Unlink failed, removing descriptor /vmfs/volumes/vvol:####/rfc##/vmname-000002.vmdk.
vmx - VigorTransportProcessClientPayload: opID=1e7ae078-20-a03b seq=1451046: Receiving Snapshot.Take request. 
vmx - DISKLIB-LINK  : DiskLinkCreateNativeDesc: Parent is set to self '/vmfs/volumes/vvol:####/rfc##/vmname-000002.vmdk'.
vmx - DISKLIB-LINK  : DiskLinkPrepareNativeSnap: Failed to create native descriptor: One of the parameters supplied is invalid
vmx - DISKLIB-LINK  : DiskLinkPrepareNativeSnapCBInt: Failed to prepare native snapshot of '/vmfs/volumes/vvol:####/rfc##/vmname-000002.vmdk': One of the parameters supplied is invalid
vmx - DISKLIB-LIB_CREATE   :DiskLibPrepareOrCreateChildNativeSnap: Failed to prepare snapshot: One of the parameters supplied is invalid

 

Resolution

Fix will be in future release ESXi 8.0 P07.