Replica Stuck Reading Hard Disk (0KB)

[jimerb]

My replica jobs hang on Hard disk 1 (0 B) 0 B read at 0 KB/s [CBT]
They sit there indefinitely. I cannot cancel the job either. I have to reboot the server to get it to clear.

I've made sure that I have no residuals left behind. There are no checkpoints on the host. The target is not there. The data files are not there on the target or the Datastore. It's a "fresh" replication.

I have both the ESXI hosts and VCENTER added to my backup infrastructure. (Not sure which I should use to pick the hosts, or if I should have both the hosts and vcenter added?)

I am on B&R 11.0.1.1261 P20220302
VCENTER 8
ESXI 8

Can you provide guidance?

I have a case open, but this is a home lab with an NFR license so any additional guidance I can get with the community would be fantastic. Case 05809182

[Mildur]

Hi Jim

As already discussed in the other topic, vSphere 8.0 support is limited.
What's the hardware version of your VM? v20 won't work.

I have both the ESXI hosts and VCENTER added to my backup infrastructure. (Not sure which I should use to pick the hosts, or if I should have both the hosts and vcenter added?)

Sounds wrong to me. Only vCenter is required. Hosts will be added automatically over the vCenter.

Support for vSphere 8.0 will be provided with Veeam Backup & Replication V12.

Thanks
Fabian

[jimerb]

I'm running version 17.

So do you think i should pull out the individual hosts? All the backups which are working fine were built with the hosts. Will all of them need to be redone and run new?

[Mildur]

VM hardware version V17 should work. I cannot comment on the root cause then. For that analyzing the logs in your support case is required which is only done by our support team. Maybe it can be a compatibility issue or something in your environment which may interfere with the replication.

So do you think i should pull out the individual hosts? All the backups which are working fine were built with the hosts. Will all of them need to be redone and run new?

If you remove the hosts and start protecting your VMs over the vCenter, Veeam will recognize them as new virtual machines.

Thanks
Fabian

[jimerb]

I tried to pull out one of the hosts and it says it can't because it's involved in one ore more infrastructure roles. There is a scale out to azure in the mix here so pulling the hosts could be tricky.

I've added the logs to the support case listed. Hopefully they can take a look. Welcome any other suggestions.

[jimerb]

I have more info on this. I can replicate another server bewtwen the same two hosts. They are running the same hardware (version 17).

The only difference is that the one that is failing is has a thick provisioned (lazy zero'd) hdd and the one that works is thin provisioned.

Could there be something that needs to be done special because of the hard drive format?

[jimerb]

I have a replication hanging when it gets to the step to copy the hard drive. It never finishes. Yet I have another replica between the same destination and target host that works fine.

Can anyone give me some advice. I have case #05809182 opened but it's an NFR license for a home lab so I'm not sure what to expect.

Details:
Veeam B&R 11.0.1.1261.P20220302
ESXI 7.0 (Source)
ESXI 8.0 (Target)
VCENTER 8.0

The last few lines of the replica job log (while it's actually in a hung state are:

#Mod: Logs removed, please follow our rules and do not post log files in the forum

thanks for any guidance.

[Mildur]

Hello

Please don‘t create a second topic for the same issue. As we are not a support forum as explained in our forum rules, technical issues must be solved together with our support team. I will check next week if there are known issues in V11a with vSphere 7 to vSphere 8 replicas.

You may also consider waiting for official vSphere 8.0 support in V12, if your environment is a Homelab.

Thanks,
Fabian

[jimerb]

Thanks Fabian were you able to see if there are any issues with V11a, vsphere 7 and vsphere 8?

I'm still stuck unable to create replicas.

[Mildur]

Hi Jim

Our QA team is currently involved in testing the upcoming V12 release.

I have thought of a workaround we can try. Have you tried to replicate the VMs from a backup instead of the source VM?
You can specify a backup repository as a source in your replica job:
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=110

Maybe it works when we don't replicate from the source vm.

Thanks
Fabian

[jimerb]

Hi Fabian,
Yes I tried that. It still hung on hard drive copy (which surprised me). I thought this would have been a nice workaround while I waited for V12.

I hear we are close the V12 release? Do you have a date yet?

I welcome any other suggestions or workarounds.

[Mildur]

No, we don't have a release date yet.
Do you see the same issue when you replicate a VM on vSphere 8.0 to vSphere 8.0? Or for vSphere 7.0 to vSphere 7.0?

Thanks,
Fabian

[jimerb]

Replication was working fine when everything was VSphere 7. Vcenter 8 was also installed fresh. I didn't upgrade from 7 as it got corrupted (which prompted me to upgrade things.)

If the V12 QA team thinks I would be an interesting candidate to try the beta, I'd be happy to. Better for me to experiment with this condition in a home lab, rather than finding a bug in a fortune 500 company with their production responsibilities.

[Mildur]

Hi Jim

Unfortunately I cannot provide you with access to the Beta files. Betas are managed and supported by our system engineers.
I suggest to contact your local Veeam system engineer with your business mail address to get access to the beta.

It doesn't necessarily mean that V12 will solve the issue in your environment. Checking our internal bug tracking system it doesn't look like we have known issues for such replication scenario. And vSphere 7 to 8 replication will be tested against V12.
If V12 the issues still persists in your environment, only a support case will help to analyze and solve this issue. We cannot analyze technical issues over the RnD forum.

Thanks,
Fabian

[jimerb]

Hello, i just wanted to post the resolution for this in case anyone else has the issue. The problem was that for some reason the replication was using NFS instead of VDDK and it was getting a read only error on the target destination.

Support wasn't sure why that was happening but they asked me to make a change:
Their instruction which worked:

In order to get the replication job working, we should be able to tell it to not use direct NFS via the Proxy settings. To do this, go to Backup Infrastructure>Backup Proxies, then right-click the VMWare Backup Proxy and click Properties. On the first screen where you see Transport Mode, click Choose, and select Virtual Appliance. You can leave "Failover to network mode..." enabled, as this should not affect anything. The key part is that we're essentially telling it to skip Direct Storage Access by selecting Virtual Appliance, which should cause it to use VDDK

The replications worked great after this. Perhaps this will help others.

[Mildur]

Hi Jim

Thanks for the update. I'm glad that you found a workaround.
Maybe you can try again with the old setting after we released V12.

Best,
Fabian