Unable to commit snapshot after VADP backup

When doing a health check I found the following error during the remove if a snapshot in vCenter:

Unable to access file <unspecified filename> since it is locked

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There is a problem when committing the snapshot after the vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP) backup of the VM.

In the snapshot manager in vCenter there was no snapshot visible. I needed the be sure that no snapshot is active in the background.  This can be very dangerous when snapshots still active and grows. The snapshot can allocate al the free disk space on the datastore and slow down the VM.

By enabling remote Tech Support Mode (TSM)  on the VMware ESXi server I needed the be sure that no snapshot is active by using the following command:

find /vmfs/volumes/ -iname "*delta.vmdk"

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The command displays all the “delta.vmdk” snapshot files on all the VMFS volumes.  This command show that the snapshot is still active.

To “temporally” solve this problem:

Create a manual snapshot of the VM. When the snapshot is created the old “Consolidate Helper-0” is added to the snapshot manager.

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Hit the Delete All Button and the two snapshots are committed. When the remove snapshot task is completed (this can take a while depending on the size of the snapshot). Run the find command again and verify if the snapshot is committed.

I see this problem lately with more customers who using VMware vSphere 4.1 Update 1 with different backup solutions such ad Symantec CommVault and Veeam  that use VADP.  Let’s create a support incident.

 

Related posts:

  1. Unable to delete a VMDK because it’s locked
  2. VMware ESX servers unable to manage via VIC, SSH or iLO session
  3. How-to extend the VMDK and the Windows disk
  4. VMware vSphere PowerCLI version 4.1 Update 1 released

3 thoughts on “Unable to commit snapshot after VADP backup”

  1. I have seen this before and more common reason for this to occur is generally when for some reason the backup of a VM fails which results in leaving the Snapshot uncommited. Failre can be due to failure at the Backup end or say for example if Virtual Center restarts which would result on loss of conection etc .. I have seen this more with Symantec Backup Products.

  2. Pingback: VADP backup fails to remove snapshot « Henriwithani

  3. i want to know the reasons why snapshots are not removed(consolidated) after the backup job completes successfully.
    According to my experience, the VADP based software successfully backups the VM but when it requests the ESXi server to consolidate the snapshot , the ESXi host fails to do this..I have seen this issue associated with VMs having a heavy I/O..I have asked many questions on forums (e.g VMWARE Community) and am still investigating this issue to know EXACTLY why this happens.

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