Freezing guest operating system

[flavor4real]

Freezing guest operating system

After I checked the option "Enable VMware tools quiescence" I receive the error below. Since, the VM In this particular Backup Job are no Exchange Server or SQL servers, I thought I can check this option which would might help with a few snapshot errors I receive every here and then. why do I get this msg below? Is there a fix? or should I un-check the option?

CreateSnapshot failed, vmRef "vm-20148", timeout "1800000", snName "VEEAM BACKUP TEMPORARY SNAPSHOT", snDescription "Please do not delete this snapshot. It is being used by Veeam Backup.", memory "False", quiesce "True"
Cannot create a quiesced snapshot because the create snapshot operation exceeded the time limit for holding off I/O in the frozen virtual machine.

[Gostev]

Yes, it would be best to uncheck this option as VMware Tools quiescence may cause various issues with snapshot creation. This was the reason why we implemented our own quiescing mechanism (based on Microsoft VSS integration) in Backup v2 in the first place. We wanted something we are able to fully support and enhance ourselves. With VMware Tools quiescence, we have no insight when something goes wrong and it decides to break.

Note that we do recommend enabling Veeam's application-aware processing for all Windows VMs, whether or not they have Exchange or SQL servers. Even clean Windows 7 install has 11 VSS writers available, and they are there for a reason - not because Windows devs had nothing to do. So, you really want to leverage Veeam VSS integration (part of application-aware processing option) for all of your Windows VMs.

Thanks.

[flavor4real]

Interesting my friends .. Thanks for all the good and quick information you provide

[DANCHUFT]

[merged into existing discussion]

Hi,

We have a 2008 R2 Virtual Machine that is part of a large VEEAM Backup job that contains a number of 2008 VM's. The Job is set to quiesce the guest operating system. This job has been running fine with no issues for a long time. Recently, we expanded the Virtual Disk on this particluar VM from 1TB to 1.5TB. we then re-scanned the disk within Windows inside the VM, converted it to a Dynamic disk and expanded the partition on that disk to occupy the entire 1.5TB of capacity.

That evening the VM in question backed up correctly. Ever since then, the VM that had the disk expanded fails every night with the followign error;

Freezing guest operating system
CreateSnapshot failed, vmRef "vm-367", timeout "1800000", snName "VEEAM BACKUP TEMPORARY SNAPSHOT", snDescription "Please do not delete this snapshot. It is being used by Veeam Backup.", memory "False", quiesce "True"
Cannot create a quiesced snapshot because the create snapshot operation exceeded the time limit for holding off I/O in the frozen virtual machine.

I am aware that this is a snapshot timeout issue and have tried numerous things to resolve it. I have re-installed VM Tools on the VM,. re-booted the VM, checked the VSS State on the VM and also made sure there are no I/O intensive tasks running on/to the vm at the time of backup, all to no avail.

The strange thing is I can take a quiesced snapshot of the VM that is failing from within the vSphere Client with no issues?

I have opened a ticket with support but thought the Forum might be a good place to look too. Does anyone have any ideas or similar issues with VM's that have had disks extended or converted to Dynamic Disks. I know VEEAM can have trouble when it comes to FLR Restores from Dynamic disks, I wasn't aware they caused issue with actual backup though?

Dan..

[Vitaliy S.]

In addition to what have been discussed above, please note that as per our Release Notes:

VMware Tools quiescence is not supported for Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7 running on ESX(i) 4.1 hosts. To workaround this, enable application-aware processing in the Veeam job settings to leverage Veeam VSS integration