LWD-based backups fail due to error "Cannot complete the operation. See the event log for details. A disk was closed during the operation. This can happen due to VM lifecycle events such as VM power off, vMotion, and HA failover."

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• LWD-based snapshot sync task triggered repeatedly failed with the error:

"Cannot complete the operation. See the event log for details. A disk was closed during the operation. This can happen due to VM lifecycle events such as VM power off, vMotion, and HA failover."

Cause

• The LWD-based snapshot sync task failed because another task was already in progress on the affected virtual machine.
  • This can be verified by navigating to the VM’s Monitor tab → Tasks and Events → Tasks section
• vCenter/ESXI hosts allow only one task to run on a virtual machine at a time. These operations are sequential by design to prevent disk and data inconsistencies.
• Since the snapshot removal task was active, the LWD snapshot sync task could not proceed until it was completed.

Resolution

• This is expected behavior.
• Avoid triggering multiple tasks simultaneously on a virtual machine.
• Schedule snapshot operations sequentially and allow one task to fully complete before initiating another.
• After the previously triggered snapshot tasks complete, the LWD snapshot sync task should execute successfully.