Remove Snapshot - Status: A file was not found

[aitch]

Hello,

This is my first post in the community so apologies in advance if this is the wrong place for this discussion.

We have four ESX 3.5 hosts in a HA cluster and we have two SLES10 VMs running which have snapshots on.

I tried to remove a couple of snapshots on both of the hosts, but I get "A file was not found"

The snapshots also still exist under the snapshot manager.

Does anyone have any ideas on this one? I googled and used the search on here and many instances came up for this subject, but the error happened upon a reconfigure rather than a snapshot removal.

Thanks

Haydn

[ShanVMLand]

Welcome to Forum.. You are in the right place, no worries

Did you see the snapshots file in VMFS path thru command line?

Can you check the VMX configuraiton where the VMDK points to? or post your VMX config file here.

Shan

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[aitch]

Thanks for the quick reply ShanVMLand.

If I browse the datastore that the VM sits on, the folder name is different to the vmname. We renamed the VM around 3 months ago and the folder has retained the same name. Also, browsing this particular folder through the VI Client takes a long time, other folders are ok. This vm is quite large though.

The server has two disks. Under the vmx for this VM, the VMDK points to:

scsi0:0.fileName = "migsta-000009.vmdk"

and

scsi0:1.filename = "migsta_1-000009.vmdk"

I've attached the .vmx file for this server.

Through the command line I can see a number of Snapshot files:

migsta-Snapshot10.vmsn

migsta-Snapshot2.vmsn

migsta-Snapshot3.vmsn

migsta-Snapshot5.vmsn

migsta-Snapshot6.vmsn

migsta-Snapshot8.vmsn

migsta-Snapshot9.vmsn

The following VMDK files are also present:

migsta-000001-delta.vmdk

migsta-000001.vmdk

migsta-000002-delta.vmdk

migsta-000002.vmdk

migsta-000003-delta.vmdk

migsta-000003.vmdk

migsta-000005-delta.vmdk

migsta-000005.vmdk

migsta-000006-delta.vmdk

migsta-000006.vmdk

migsta-000007-delta.vmdk

migsta-000007.vmdk

migsta-000009-delta.vmdk

migsta-000009.vmdk

migsta_1-000001-delta.vmdk

migsta_1-000001.vmdk

migsta_1-000002-delta.vmdk

migsta_1-000002.vmdk

migsta_1-000003-delta.vmdk

migsta_1-000003.vmdk

migsta_1-000004-delta.vmdk

migsta_1-000004.vmdk

migsta_1-000005-delta.vmdk

migsta_1-000005.vmdk

migsta_1-000006-delta.vmdk

migsta_1-000006.vmdk

migsta_1-000007-delta.vmdk

migsta_1-000007.vmdk

migsta_1-000009-delta.vmdk

migsta_1-000009.vmdk

migsta_1-flat.vmdk

migsta_1.vmdk

migsta-flat.vmdk

migsta.vmdk

Thanks

Haydn

[ShanVMLand]

By seeing your VMX file, it points to right snapshot file. Also, the file is existing in your directory.

You may try with using VMware Converter to consolidate all snapshots of that VM to another ESX host.

Shan

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[aitch]

Thanks ShanVMLand, how would I go about using converter to do this?

I also read somewhere that when you delete all snapshots, it consolidates the snapshots temporarily before removing them, if there isn't enough space on the volume to remove them, then the removal will fail, could this be it?

[ShanVMLand]

I feel the VMware Converter is one of best and safe way to go ahead. Definitely, you should have enough disk space to before consolidating those snapshots.

I read an article that another easiest to way use the VMware Converter is boot the affected VM thru VMware Converter ISO and export the VM. Here is the article link: http://www.ipmer.com/2008/05/70gb-snapshot-yikes.html

Consolidating the Snapshot thru Command Line: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100784...

Anything you do before, just copy/backup the VM into any safe location.

Shan

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[aitch]

Thanks again Shan, using VMware converter seems like the safest way from our perspective, only thing is the server is a bit of a beast (200GB) so it might take a while to do this. Just need to make some disk space available for it. I'll post up in here how it goes.

Would just creating a clone of the VM solve the issue? Ie. just by right clicking the vm in the VIClient and clicking "Clone"?

The VM in question is on Suse Linux Enterprise Server 1, so converting wouldn't be possible I'm guessing.

What could have caused these errors to occur? The upmost parent snapshot was taken only a few weeks ago.

Thanks

Haydn