Need help correcting failed VMTools install in $_. config.tools.lastinstallinfo.Fault.LocalizedMessage

[JC_NZ]

I'm hoping someone can help or at least let me know this just isn't possible.

I found that a small number of our production VM's are failing VMI backups.  When I looked into the issue I found that the backup software was pulling information from VMware API and the information it was receiving was not expected so the backup software aborted the backup.

What I found via PowerCli is that if I performed the script below on one of these failing backup VM's I would receive a value "Error upgrading VMware tools." in the "Fault" attribute.

$VM1 = Get-VM <VM Name> | Get-View

$VM1.config.tools.lastinstallinfo.Fault.LocalizedMessage

If I perform the above script on a VM that is working with the backup software and completing the VMI backups then the Fault attribute above would be null.

I have checked VM Tools on the failing VMI VM and it is installed and running at the most current version available in our environment (10346).  Tools appear to be working in every other way.  I am able to manually perform a snapshot and quiesce the guest file system, which uses tools.  I have tried re-installing tools, without a reboot and the Fault attribute remains in an error state, until I reboot the VM.  Some of these VM's are production VM's that can only be reboot during scheduled down times, which are sometimes a month away.  As I need to get backups working on these VM's I'm looking for a way to possibly modify the Fault attribute to be null.  I'm not sure this is even possible or if its a good idea, but I'd love to try it on a few test VM's so that we have a work around until the VM's can be rebooted during a maintenance window.  Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.  Let me know if I can provide any additional information.

[LucD · Accepted solution]

I'm afraid you can't change the properties in that object.

From the ToolsConfigInfo object.

[JC_NZ]

Thanks for the quick response LucD.  That is a real bummer, which means my only option is to work back with the backup software vendor to try and find a work around.  Ouch...

Would you be willing to share where and how you found the information on that object?  That would be extremely helpful for me in the future.

[LucD]

That's in the API Reference, I included the link in my previous reply

[JC_NZ]

​Just wanted to check to see if the value in "toolsInstallManager.lastInstallError" can be edited manually via PowerCli or if this is not editable.

​Thanks for all your help.

[LucD]

You can change that value.

But what would this accomplish?

$vm = Get-VM -Name MyVM

$spec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec

$option = New-Object VMware.Vim.OptionValue

$option.Key = 'toolsInstallManager.lastInstallError'

$option.Value = 0

$spec.ExtraConfig += $option

$vm.ExtensionData.ReconfigVM($spec)

[JC_NZ]

This is a limited use case where for some reason tools reports an error on the last attempted update, but tools is still installed and functioning.  A backup product we use is monitoring that field and errors the backup of the VM if the value is anything but 0.  They are requesting that we try to change the value from 21009 to 0 to see if that fixes the backups without a reboot of the production server.

Thanks again for the quick response Luc.

[LucD]

Ok, good to know.

Let us know if it worked.

[JC_NZ]

Your command successfully set the toolsInstallManager.lastInstallError to 0.  But this did not resolve the VMI backup issues.  I am wondering if they are also looking at the object "guestinfo.toolsInstallErrCode" which looks like it is set to 87 on a VM that I'm unable to perform a VMI on.  I will follow up with our backup vendor.

Thanks for your help Luc.