Snapshots: I've got over 100, but where are they?

[slb]

I keep getting a warning that my VM may not startup if I don't get rid of some Snapshots.

Where the heck are they?

I go to the Virtual Machine / Snapshots menu item and see one.

Where the heck to I go to get rid of all these snapshots I can't see?

Using build Version 2.0 (116369)

Thanks,

Scott

[sailesh_a]

Hey Scott, could you try the following:

- in the menu bar click Virtual Machine -> Rollback

Do you see the snapshots now?

If not, then try this:

- in the menu bar click Virtual Machine -> Snapshots

- Uncheck "Only show my snapshots" (at the bottom of the window)

Do you see the snapshots now?

If not, then I'm not sure what the problem is. To help us diagnose the issue can you do this

- In the menu bar click Window -> Virtual Machine Library

- Right click on your VM and choose "Show In Finder".

- In Finder, right click on your VM and choose "Show Package Contents"

- Can post the list of files you see here.

- Also posting the contents of your VMX file might help.

- Note, if you see files with "Snapshot" in their name, don't simply delete them. I'm not sure but deleting them might cause your VM to stop working.

Good luck!

Sailesh

[slb]

Sailesh,

Thanks for the reply.

There are basically only one snapshot showing in the Fusion Snapshots window.

Showing contents of the VM reveals ~227 files.

Most end with .vmdk.

Some .vmem.

Some .vmsn.

Folders named .vmdk.lck.

Etc.

Wondering what to delete here?

Thanks,

Scott

[sailesh_a]

I think the .vmem and .vmsn files belong to the snapshots. It's weird why they don't show up in the snapshot window.

I'll ask around see if any one else has seen this kind of problem.

[slb]

What I did was revert to the only snapshot I had from August 1st.

When I did that, of course the VMw as in need of updating, but most of the snapshots self-deleted when I did the rollback.

Possibly something got corrupted on subsequent snapshots and kept them in the package?

Seems OK now.

I'm going to keep an eye on this.

The VM size (Finder) was 48G and is now 28GB.

Looks like that was the ticket -possibly one of the betas hosed it up?

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

Scott

[admin]

Reverting to a snapshot doesn't delete or affect other snapshots. Is it possible you're confusing a snapshot and a disk slice? For a split disk, a disk slice will have a name of the form VM-s00#.vmdk, while a snapshot will have a name of the form VM-00000#-s00#.vmdk. For a flat disk, I believe the names are VM-f00#.vmdk and VM-00000#-f00#.vmdk.

I think it's unlikely that you had 100 snapshots (they'd take up more space than 20 GB unless the virtual machine was using less than 200 MB RAM), and more likely you had one snapshot with a lot of slices (e.g. your virtual disk is ~200 GB and split).

[slb14]

Not sure, etung - that's what it kept telling me, and I had 103 of the files in the VM contents and as soon as I reverted to the Aug 1st snapshot - the only one, it removed most of them before my eyes.

I haven't seen this on any other VM, so this was new to me.

Thanks for the reply - I'll keep an eye on this.

Scott

[williamarrata]

slb,

try using this tool called VPsnaper2. It's pretty easy to use and I think it will do the job. Here's the link.

Hope that helped.

[slb14]

Thanks William - will give that a shot too!

Scott

PS - yes, helpful

[ecsk2]

I too am having this issue!

The download posted link to above didn't help

[ecsk2]

If not, then I'm not sure what the problem is. To help us diagnose the issue can you do this

- In the menu bar click Window -> Virtual Machine Library

- Right click on your VM and choose "Show In Finder".

- In Finder, right click on your VM and choose "Show Package Contents"

- Can post the list of files you see here.

- Also posting the contents of your VMX file might help.

- Note, if you see files with "Snapshot" in their name, don't simply delete them. I'm not sure but deleting them might cause your VM to stop working.

Good luck!

Sailesh

Did this, I actually had to additional "Virtual Machines" labeled ORIGINAL and ORIGINAL 2 perhaps it's from my own adding HDDs or from the Time Machine, I don't know but since most of the files there were VERY old I removed them. Now in the Virtual Machines running there are indeed some 115 different .vmdk.lck folders (all dated today) and same amount of .vmdk files going back to early 2008.

[admin]

I don't know but since most of the files there were VERY old I removed them.

Depending on what files your virtual machine is depending on, that might have been a bad idea. Once you take a snapshot, the virtual disk representing it will no longer change, but it's still in use. If you quit Fusion and restart and the virtual machine still runs, I think you managed to get away with it.

In order to help, we need to know more information about your setup. Open a Terminal window and type the following (without quotes, and including trailing space), but don't press enter yet: "ls -lAF ". Locate your virtual machine (e.g. in the Virtual Machine Library window, ctrl-click the virtual machine and select Show in Finder) and drag-and-drop to the Terminal window. This should enter the fully escaped path to the .vmwarevm bundle. Now press enter, then copy and paste the results to a file and attach it. Also attach the .vmx config file in the .vmwarevm bundle (see if you need help getting inside the bundle).

[ecsk2]

I don't know but since most of the files there were VERY old I removed them.

Depending on what files your virtual machine is depending on, that might have been a bad idea. Once you take a snapshot, the virtual disk representing it will no longer change, but it's still in use. If you quit Fusion and restart and the virtual machine still runs, I think you managed to get away with it.

I think I wasn't clear enough, what I deleted was not a snapshots or virtual disks or anything from the current running machine, but TWO completely separate folders. Meaning when you go to the window and chose virtual machine library and from there open in finder, I basically went "up" a step and found two (total of three) folders in addition to the current running one, thats what I deleted since there had been no activity on any of the files since early this year.

To this belongs that I started out my Virtual machine with only 20GB as I was only going to try it out and then only had a 240GB HDD in the machine, later added additional HDDs now adding up to a total of 3TB, during the past year (and then some) I've attempted to add additional space to that virtual drive, and also been through two migrations from one HDD to an additional one and from a 3rd EXT one to a third internal ETC, also duplicated the main HDD over to a new 1TB, no on top of that I have the TIME MACHINE running so it is fully possible that in some (or several) of these adding of HDDs or/and migrating to another MAIN HDD that there was multiple copies of the virtual disks, not in use but on the drive(s), "multiply" that with the Time machine and who knows what happened.

Anyway just did a restart and everything is running just fine, those other folders AND machines (one in each) were just some old copy of some of my machine I believe.

I will end this reply/post here and follow your instructions and post that seperately. I'm running a Mac Pro btw with 2 24" monitors and Windows XP pro.

[ecsk2]

In order to help, we need to know more information about your setup. Open a Terminal window and type the following (without quotes, and including trailing space), but don't press enter yet: "ls -lAF ". Locate your >virtual machine (e.g. in the Virtual Machine Library window, ctrl-click the virtual machine and select Show in Finder) and drag-and-drop to the Terminal window. This should enter the fully escaped path to the .vmwarevm bundle. Now press enter, then copy and paste the results to a file and attach it. Also attach the .vmx config file in the .vmwarevm bundle (see if you need help getting inside the bundle).

Ok I believe I got this done, on the VMX I prefer going to the WINDOW -> VIRTUAL MACHINE LIBRARY -> RIGHT CLICKING "SHOW IN FINDER" -> RIGHT CLICKING "SHOW PACKAGE CONTENT" that works just as well correct?

I have removed my username from these files for privacy reasons, ok?

[ecsk2]

I don't know but since most of the files there were VERY old I removed them.

Depending on what files your virtual machine is depending on, that might have been a bad idea. Once you take a snapshot, the virtual disk representing it will no longer change, but it's still in use. If you quit Fusion and restart and the virtual machine still runs, I think you managed to get away with it.

I know what those files I removed were now, they were the "originals" of the virtual machine from when I had to use the time machine (in the past) to restore my machine.

[admin]

OK, that's helpful. Removing your name is fine (you are the owner of all the files so permissions aren't a problem, right?).

For some reason, even though it looks like you only have one snapshot, you have an insane number of cow disks (all the .vmdk files ending in numbers - don't delete them, though, they're needed). When you delete a snapshot, they should be cleaned up automatically, but in your case, they're not. Did you ever cancel out of the cleaning up disks process?

Since you have so many cow disks, the first thing I'd do is create a backup of the virtual machine while neither it nor Fusion is running. Then delete your snapshot - this should trigger consolidation of all the disks, though there may be something strange with your setup so it might not work. If it does, it'll probably take a while. If it doesn't, please attach vmware.log. from the .vmwarevm bundle.

[ecsk2]

Yes I am the owner of everything so no permission issues, no.

So I guess that's why it triggers the 100+ snapshot error? The "cow disks"?

I don't recall if I have canceled out of any cleaning up disk process, are you talking about an XP or VM or some 3rd party cleaning btw? Either way wouldn't be able to say def yes or no to that question either way to be perfectly honest, sorry!

Ok so backup the machine completely yes? Then deleting...which snapshot? Oh on the snapshot(s) yes I've tried to delete them in the Snapshot window in an attempt to get this resolved obviously that didn't help but thats why there's only one as such.

Can you just go over what you're recommending once more just to make sure I'm taking any wrong moves, ok?

[admin]

So I guess that's why it triggers the 100+ snapshot error? The "cow disks"?

Yes - the message is a bit misleading, it says snapshots but it really means COW disks. A COW disk is an important part of a snapshot, but is not quite the same thing.

I don't recall if I have canceled out of any cleaning up disk process, are you talking about an XP or VM or some 3rd party cleaning btw? Either way wouldn't be able to say def yes or no to that question either way to be perfectly honest, sorry!

Fair enough. When you delete a snapshot, Fusion should pop up a progress bar about cleaning up discarded disks, and there's a cancel button.

Ok so backup the machine completely yes? Then deleting...which snapshot? Oh on the snapshot(s) yes I've tried to delete them in the Snapshot window in an attempt to get this resolved obviously that didn't help but thats why there's only one as such.

Right.

Can you just go over what you're recommending once more just to make sure I'm taking any wrong moves, ok?

My thinking is that if this doesn't work, there might be something useful in the logs indicating why it didn't work. Also, how much free space is there on this drive?

[ecsk2]

Then delete your snapshot - this should trigger consolidation of all the disks, though there may be something strange with your setup so it might not work. If it does, it'll probably take a while. If it doesn't, please attach vmware.log. from the .vmwarevm bundle.

This is the part I am a bit unclear on still.. meaning after backup is done, then restart and delete ALL SNAPSHOTS or?

[ecsk2]

Now I got this (and after it the same 100+ message again )