How to disable application level quiescing during snapshots of virtual machines

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0
• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0
• VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0

Issue/Introduction

This article provides steps to to disable application level quiescing being used for quiesced snapshots taken of virtual machines in vSphere, in favour of using file level quiescing.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7

Resolution

To disable application level quiescing for snapshots, use one of the following methods:

• [Windows and Linux OS] Disable application level quiescing using vSphere Client or ESXi host client:

1. Power off the virtual machine.

2. Log in to the vCenter Server using vSphere Client or the ESXi host with the Host Client.

3. Right-click the virtual machine and click Edit settings.

4. Click the Options tab.

5. Navigate to Advanced > General > Configuration Parameters.

6. Add or modify the row: disk.EnableUUID with the value FALSE.

7. Click OK to save.

8. Click OK to exit.

9. Power the virtual machine back on again.

You may need to unregister/reregister the VM from the vCenter inventory if the issue is still present. 

1. Power off the virtual machine.

2. Notate the virtual machine's datastore directory path to the  .vmx file.

3. Right-click the virtual machine.

4. Click Remove from Inventory.

5. Reregister the virtual machine back to the inventory by navigating to the virtual machine's datastore folder, right-click on the .vmx file, and register
    

• [Windows OS only] Disable VSS application quiescing using the VMware Tools configuration:

  1. Open the file C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Tools\Tools.conf file using a text editor.

  2. If the file does not exist at the location mentioned above, create it.

  3. Add these entries to the file:
     
     [vmbackup]
     vss.disableAppQuiescing = true
      

  4. Save and close the file.

  5. Restart the VMware Tools Service.

     1. Click Start > Run, type services.msc, and click OK.

     2. Right-click the VMware Tools Service and click Restart.

Additional Information