vmware unable to quiesce VM oracle database

[pat_ren]

hey guys,

we had a weird issue come up i've not seen before, I have a VM that fails to take snapshots/quiesce - this happens with either a manual test snapshot in vmware or a veeam job.
looking into the logs, i believe the issue is due to the oracle database vss writer failing constantly.

the oracle db error is this:
https://www.veeam.com/kb2686

database in NOARCHIVELOG mode must be in a consistent state for backup

we do not manage or maintain this database so I have sent an email to the third party team who do, my guess is the database is not in a good state after some kind of unclean shutdown. I don't know much about oracle so I haven't tried to investigate it any further yet.
the backups were working fine up until a few days ago (seemed to line up with a server reboot) so I am guessing that might be the cause.

has anyone seen this before? do I need to get third party vendor to check the database? maybe give it a clean stop/start?

I'll wait until I hear back from them, but I'm just curious about this error and trying to learn a bit more about it and why it suddenly occurred. I will not be making any changes to the DB.
let me know if you guys have any ideas on any other possible explanations? thanks.

[tj818]

If the DB is in an Open state and in no archive log mode, then the snapshot will fail as there is no way to keep the DB consistent in Read/Write mode without archive logging. If no archive log mode is enabled prior to the snap, the DB will need to be in a Mounted or Offline State prior. The DB could be put into the correct state prior to the snapshot, but this will take it out of read/write. Is it possible to enable archive logs?

[pat_ren]

If the DB is in an Open state and in no archive log mode, then the snapshot will fail as there is no way to keep the DB consistent in Read/Write mode without archive logging. If no archive log mode is enabled prior to the snap, the DB will need to be in a Mounted or Offline State prior. The DB could be put into the correct state prior to the snapshot, but this will take it out of read/write. Is it possible to enable archive logs?

thanks, we don't manage or have anything to do with this database, and it's been backing up fine for ages until recently, so I suspect it's some kind of temporary issue. We've asked the third party to check it out and will see what they say, hopefully it can just be remounted in a normal state and will work normally again.