Snapshot never finishes

[Ilene]

We are running a ESXi 4.1 update2. When we try to run a snapshot while the guest os is running ( Red Hat), it always takes for ever and eventually never finishes.

I am trying to use Data Recovery solution but I am afraid to implement if it going to just hang there.  Is there a setting we over looked?

Thank you,

Ilene

[mbroeken]

Do you know how big the snapshot it? It can take forever :(...

best thing to do is wait, It can time out, but would be still busy removing.

If you look at the disk propperties of the VM, and you still notice a name-000001.vmdk disk, there still is a snapshot.

best thing you can do is create a new snapshot, and after this completes, use the delete all snapshots button.

[Ilene]

When we take the vm offline te snapshot takes about an hour. We would like to schedule the snapshot with out shoting the server down. It is a production server that ideally could stay on 24X7 for our custumers

[mbroeken]

You can try to reinstall VMware Tools, this sometimes helps.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=101518...

I was thinking you where trying to delete a snapshot....

[Ilene]

thanks I will give that a try. I think once the data recovery is running we are going to have a good  DR going.

[a_p_]

When we take the vm offline te snapshot takes about an hour.

Do I understand this correctly? With the VM powered off, creating a snapshot takes an hour?

If this is the case there's definitely something wrong. Does the VM's folder on the datastore contain any ...-ctk.vmdk (Changed Block Tracking) files? Maybe there's an issue with CBT and deleting the -ctk.vmdk files with the VM powered off resolves the issue!? Please post a list of files in the VM's folder.

Another place to look at is the VM's vmware.log file to see whether this contains any hints.

André

[Ilene]

Here is my datastore on this virtual machine. I didn't see any of those files. It is a big red hat server.

[a_p_]

I can't tell you for sure what is causing this issue, but I think it could have to do with the quiescing operation and the 32GB RAM assigned to the VM!?

Btw. the screen shot shows some very large snapshots (21GB and 45GB). Unless you need them, I'd recommend to run a "Delete All" from the Snapshot Manager.

André