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dwchan
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

How to purge a stuck VM guest

I have a VM guest that seem to be stuck or corrupted. Not sure if we did too much snap/un-snap, but it is at a weird state. When I go look at its using the VI client from either the VC or connect directly to the host, it state that it is power on, but i know it is not (No console, nor can I ping it). In any case, I can't purge it no matter what I try. When I try to power it off, or purge it, it say there is another operation going on. Does any one have any solution or ran across this in the past?

dwc

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

You can try to kill the process directly. Here's a few options. Sometimes it may just help to run service mgmt-vmware restart in a console session on the ESX host.

http://www.vmware-land.com/Vmware_Tips.html#VM2

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VirtualNoitall
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Be careful issuing the "service mgmt-vmware restart" command if you have auto-startup/shutdown of virtual machines enabled and are not current with patches. There is a bug that will cause virtual machines on the host to restart.

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esiebert7625
Immortal
Immortal

It sucks you have to add a disclaimer everytime you tell someone to restart that service because of that bug. I created a tip on my site about this if anyone wants to link to it rather then explain it over and over.

http://vmware-land.com/Vmware_Tips.html#ESX11

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

The bookmarks on your site are much appreciated. How about an "auto-signiture-disclaimer" plugin for posting that generates a signiture based on keywords in the post Smiley Happy

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esiebert7625
Immortal
Immortal

That would be nice Smiley Happy The forum upgrades are not too far away and I think everyone is really going to like all the cool new features. Unfortunately that is not one of them (although normal signatures might be).

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bowulf
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Another method to kill the stuck VM is "vm-support -x" to list the online pids, and then "vm-support -X #" to send an abort to the VM.

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esiebert7625
Immortal
Immortal

That's one of the 3 methods I have documented in the link above...

http://www.vmware-land.com/Vmware_Tips.html#VM2

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