Quiescing snapshots in an ESXi host fails with the error: The guest OS has reported an error during quiescing. The error code was: 5 The error message was: Asynchronous operation failed: >VssSyncStart

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Cannot quiesce snapshots in an ESXi host.
• Quiescing snapshots in an ESXi host fails
• You see errors similar to:
  • The guest OS has reported an error during quiescing. The error code was: 5 The error message was: Asynchronous operation failed: >VssSyncStart
  • The guest OS has reported an error during quiescing. The error code was: 5 The error message was: 'VssSyncStart' operation failed: The >system cannot find the file specified. (0x80070002)
  • The guest OS has reported an error during quiescing. The error code was: 4 The error message was: Quiesce aborted.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7
VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.x

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0.x

Cause

Depending on the error code, there are multiple reasons to receive these message such as timeouts and VSS issues. Below are examples of a few errors.

Error: The guest OS has reported an error during quiescing. The error code was: 4 The error message was: Quiesce aborted. 
Reason: Error code is 4 - VMBACKUP_REMOTE_ABORT. The backup was intentionally aborted or when when quiesced snapshot times out.

Error: The guest OS has reported an error during quiescing. The error code was: 5 The error message was: 'VssSyncStart' operation failed: The system cannot find the file specified. (0x80070002) 
Error: The guest OS has reported an error during quiescing. The error code was: 5 The error message was: 'VssSyncStart' operation failed: The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it. (0x80070422) 
Reason: Error code: is 5 - VMBACKUP_UNEXPECTED_ERROR.
Both errors above are thrown by Microsoft Service Control Manager needs more investigation with access to in-guest logs at the minimum.

Resolution

To work around this issue, disable quiescing or application quiescing. However, when you disable quiescing, the snapshots lose the application or file system consistency. See Enabling and disabling Windows 2008 and later application-consistent quiescing on ESXi/ESX .

Additional Information

For more information, see:

Troubleshooting Volume Shadow Copy (VSS) quiesce related issues
Unable to take a quiesced VMware snapshot of a virtual machine
Cannot create a quiesced snapshot because the snapshot operation exceeded the time limit for holding off I/O in the frozen virtual machine