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ZeNina
Contributor
Contributor

VM (Windows Server 2012 R2) in reboot loop - No Login possible

Hello,

i'm experiencing a very weird issue with one of our VM's and i'm completely lost here.

We have 4 Terminalserver (Windows Server 2012 R2) and on Monday, Feb. 19th i installed the latest Windows Updates. 3 of them rebooted just fine and are working as usual. But one of them just kept rebooting. No error message, no blue screen, nothing. The Logon Screen comes up and if i try to login it just reboots after about 15 seconds. Every damn time. I simply can't login, no matter how fast i'm trying to type.

So i restored the whole VM from the latest Veeam Backup (before i installed the Updates). What happened is that this newly restored machine kept on rebooting as well. So i restored the oldest backup i have (from 7 weeks ago) and even that one just keeps on rebooting. I also created a new VM and added the vmdk files, but then it just keeps on saying "getting devices ready". I tried removing every component one by one, but no luck so far. I also can't boot into safe mode or repair it with an ISO file.

Does anybody know why this happens? Fortunately my colleagues are able to work on these other servers, but i really want to know why this happened.

Thank you!

4 Replies
mloeckle
Contributor
Contributor

Did you find a resolution to this?  I was testing some VMs in a Veeam Surebackup job and noticed the exact same thing as you.  So I restored the VM with a different name and saw the same result.  Next I cloned the original and the clone did the same thing.  The only way I could get it to boot was to F8 during startup and choose last known good configuration (safe mode would not work either).  I have not restarted the original VM yet as I'm waiting to see if there's a better solution first.  This VM is unique in our environment as it was replicated using Veeam from another installation.  Of the 100s of other VMs we manage, this is the only one doing this.

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ZeNina
Contributor
Contributor

No, unfortunately not. Luckily we did have 4 WTS, so my colleagues could keep on working. Meanwhile i prepared a new one i had already installed, just in case. Interesting though, that this server was the first one i installed back when we upgraded/switched from 2008 R2 to 2012 R2. And this one has always been trouble. User profiles broke on a weekly basis and it couldn't install some updates. I also restored it already once when it kept on rebooting after windows updates. I was even in contact with Microsoft and VMWare about this. We could never figure out why this happened, so we installed a new one for worst case scenario, but it was shutdown until then. Last known good configuration didn't work for me either. I could login ONCE when i disabled VMWare Tools before. But as soon as i restarted it, same thing over again.

I gave up on this one. Although i still wanna know what's wrong... I don't even wanna imagine what would've happened if that was our main database server. I can't believe nobody - not Microsoft, VMWare or Veeam - do know what this is about. Pretty disappointing.

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gveat
Contributor
Contributor

This may be late, but maybe it could help others in the future.

I had the same issue.  What I did was shutdown the VM.  Disconnect the NIC.  Start the VM, and I was able to get in.  Once you are in, repair VMWare Tools.

MCX_CZE
Contributor
Contributor

Same problem here, after VM tools installed it just keeps on rebooting, I am desperate to find the issue, I have tried removing and adding NIC, what I have noticed is that it receives the command to shut down via VMware tools, or something else, because in EventVwr there is a log about that action.

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