Transfer of vApp '###' timed-out due to session inactivity attempt

[nirvy]

Hi All

I'm trying to export a vApp containing a single VM (as a test), but once the OVF Export completes in vCenter, the vCD UI updates the  export Status to 100% but then fails saying "Cannot enable download".  The Event Log shows the error in the subject.

The task took approx 21 minutes to Export the VMs disk to the transfer store, but vCD never creates the OVF file or finishes the job.

vCD 1.5 w/ vSphere 5 infrastructure

I've now bumped this to 'Plan B' and will try and copy with vCloud Connector instead, but I need a backup plan! 

Any ideas?

Cheers

Mark

[cfor]

I have seen this before - not sure if same issue; but figured I would share.

The session that requested the download needs to stay active.  (Yep, need to click around in VCD every 10 minutes or so or things will fail - sometimes...)

The download feature is horrible, it should "enable" then let someone download via a normal http url.  And then let the user disable, rather than the silly java applet hack.

A couple settings we changed that helped .. but still did not make it perfect.

System-Administration-General

Idel session timeout = 120min

Maximum session timeout = 720min

Transfer session timeout = 360min  (as some download take this long to prepare)

Hope that helps some.

[nirvy]

Hi Chris

Thanks for the suggestions.  I did up the settings but to no avail, I will have to try hitting refresh or something every few minutes to see if that helps!  (nightmare)

Cheers!

Mark

[cfor]

I wanted to take a few minutes to post the process I use to export an OVF currently.  It is not 100% pretty but it does go much faster than the web interface and might help some people finding this post.

See above in thread for timeout settings that we set first.

• In web UI select "Download" answer the questions.
• Close the web browser 100%
• SSH into vCloud cell server and go to /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/data/transfer  and find the current transfer (I usually find with the datetime)
• Watch this folder of a .OVF to appear.
• At this point you will have all the vmdk and ovf files in this location
• copy all these files to a tmp directory local (as the system might come clean this up if you have to wait on a network connection)
• Now you can use SSH to trasnfer these files (the export) where you would like, and not be afraid the files will be deleted while you are downloading them [something that happens about 99% of the time for us as these can be 500GB-1TB for us and have to be sent over very slow links]

Hope that helps someone at some point.

[nirvy]

Hi Chris

Unfortunately this did not work for me, though I believe this is now solved.  I stumbled across a post the other day indicating that the transfer was failing due to ISO images still being attached to VMs.  Despite already "ejecting media" from all my VMs in VCD I checked in vSphere and sure enough there were still some ISO's attached.  Once I had removed those from vCenter the export was able to create both the VMDK and OVF file for each VM.

That's not to say I have been successful in downloading them though but I am a lot further along!  After detatching any ISO from the VMs (hint: from VCD, the guest must be running to properly detach media), all exports are working fine. 

Cheers

Mark

Edited for clarity.

[retrack]

Hello,

Can you specify which file you modified for the timeout settings ?

Thank you.

[retrack]

Nevermind, found it just under my nose : in the UI !!

Sorry