"Consolidate Helper- 0" showing up after deleting snapshots

[MGregory1]

I've done a little research on this but none of the situations were the same as mine...

I have a ESXi 4.0 server, one of the VM's had two snapshots I had created in the past. I deleted them so I could make a new snapshot and then copy the recently committed VMDK. I've done this on a few other VM's without a problem. But after I deleted the two snapshots on this particular VM, a snapshot named "Consolidate Helper- 0" showed up. In my research some people had errors in the VM's log files, however my log files for this VM show no errors or failures, and no references to problems with snapshots. I am not using a backup program so the ESXi host must of created this snapshot. I'm simply copying the VMDK's manually using FastSCP.

So i'm not sure why this snapshot showed up but I'm afraid to delete it... Any thoughts on what should be done here?

[a_p_]

When you delete (multiple) snapshots while the VM is running, a "Consolidate Helper" snapshot may be created by the consolidation process. However this snapshot should be deleted again as the last step of the consolidation.

Please take a look at the VM's folder in the datastore to see whether there are snapshot files (<vmname>-00000x.vmdk).

How much free disk space do have in the datastore? Which build of ESXi are you running (Update 2 or later)?

André

[MGregory1]

Thanks for your reply and sorry I should of gave more information...

I deleted the two snapshots Friday afternoon, so it has had nearly 72 hours to process but the Consolidate Helper is still there. The overall CPU, memory, and disk I/O load is low.

I checked the VM folder in the datastore on Friday as well, and there were no delta files. I also checked the log and VMX config file and there were no mentions of snapshots there either.

We have 188 GB free on its datastore, and the VM is only 40 MB in size with 1 GB RAM.

ESXi 4.0.0, 208167. I don't know how to check which update i'm running, I don't think any as I haven't installed any.

[a_p_]

In some cases the snapshot manager just "lies" at you. It does not necessarily show the real world but only the contents of the vmsd file. What I would do now - since there are obviously no existing snapshots - is to take another snapshot of the VM and run the "Delete All" function. This should clean up the snapshot manager's display.

André

[MGregory1]

I created a new snapshot and then the Consolidated Helper one went away, only the snapshot I created is showing now. I deleted all (which deleted unusually quick) and all seems to be well. I'm going to shut the VM down and make a backup copy of the VMDK and its files. Once done i'll power it back up but i'm expecting everything will be normal.

Thanks for the help, much appreciated.

[a_p_]

That's interesting. I haven't seen such a behavior yet. Maybe the vmsd is corrupt. You may delete the vmsd file from the datastore.

André