VM power on operation hangs after snapshot creation forcefully stopped in progress.

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

After forcefully killing a VM during snapshot creation, the power on hangs for a long period of time.

Change block tracking (CBT) initialization can be seen taking a long time in the vmware.log:

Environment

vCenter/ESXi 8.x

Cause

After force killing a snapshot creation operation, CBT may take a very long time to initiate on the VM before the power on operation completes.

Resolution

Either:

Wait for the VM to power on

OR

Kill the VM power on process and disable CBT before power on again

• Killing the VM
  • Login to the ESXi shell using root account
  • Get the Vmid from the following command
    • vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms | grep -i [VM_NAME]
  • Kill the VM
    • vim-cmd vmsvc/power.off [VM_NAME]
    • Note: if this does not work, try the esxcli method outline in THIS KB.

• Disabling CBT
  • MANUALLY disable CBT
    • Follow Method 3 in THIS KB
  • Disable CBT with script
    • Run the attached script from the VM directory
      • find /vmfs/volumes -iname [VM_NAME]
      • cd [directory produced by previous command]
      • bash [PATH_TO_SCRIPT]
      • Example output:

After disabling CBT using one of the above methods, power on the VM.