Hot add is not supported, why?

[homerjnick]

Hi folks...before I log a call can I ask a question?

Our Veeam server is a physical box connected to a N Series SAN via ISCSI...

Our ESXi cluster is on Cisco UCS blades that connect to a IBM Storwize v5000 box via Fibre Channel.

I have a few VM's that are Veeam Proxies...the jobs are set to automatic transport mode.

Yet in every job I now see the line:

"Using backup proxy <VEEAMPROXYVM> for disk Hard disk 1 [hotadd]"
"Hot add is not supported for this disk, failing over to network mode (Hard disk 1)"

Why is that? The Veeam server + N Series backup SAN is in no way connected to the ESXi cluster of the production V5000 SAN barring over a network switch but I'm pretty sure prior to version 9 it was using hot add.

Any ideas? It is every backup job...

[PTide]

Hi,

Please check this KB to eliminate possible reasons and test hot-add manually. If none of these helps please open a case with suuport time and post your case ID in this thread.

Thank you.

[homerjnick]

Thanks...

I can manually add a disk to a Veeam proxy fine.

The DataStore is not VMFS3 but VMFS5 thus I assume the block size is not relevant.
The proxy VM can see all datastores
None of the disks are over 1.9TB
All disks are SCSI and not IDE
VMware Tools is the current version on VM's being backed up and on the Veeam Proxies (but Veeam B&R server is not a VM)
DataStore has sufficient space for snapshots
VM's are all the latest hardware version with no disk being created in v8 then moved to v7 VM
A single job fails with hot add thus not breaching 16 disks per SCSI controller
vCenter is used and not standalone hosts
Proxy VM's and VM's being backed up are in the same ESXi cluster
No stuck VMDK's disks

I haven't touched automount on any proxy VM, is that an actual requirement?

Case ID 01785869

[foggy]

I haven't touched automount on any proxy VM, is that an actual requirement?

No, it is disabled automatically, when required.

Logs review will reveal the actual reason of hotadd failure.

[homerjnick]

Curious issue...support did a remote session, great chap called Denis who saw a strange and generic SSL error when using VDDK...

So downloaded the VDDK and ran on one of our proxies and got an error advising 64 bit stuff won't run on 32 bit architecture....

That's right, all my proxies are 32 bit and as of a recent upgrade from 5.1 to 5.5 for my vCenter 32 bit proxies are not supported.

Tested a 64 bit proxy and hotadd worked...

Great detective work and great support...guess I should have read those vCenter 5.5 notes a bit more closely!