VMWare data recovery error when backing up Server 2003

[kgill]

Hello all,

I am using VDR to backup my VM's and it works for most of the systems except on Windows 2003 SP2 machine that we recently created with a Physical to Virtual conversion. The backup fails with the error " Failed to create snapshot for (servername), error -3960 ( cannot quiesce virtual machine)"

I assume that means that the VDR program can't stop I/O operations for the operating system but i'm not sure how to fix it.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[admin]

Is VMware Tools updated on this VM?

Confirm that a manual snapshot of that VM is successful. Make sure to uncheck memory state and check quiesce guest file system option when attempting the manual snapshot since this will mimic the snapshot operation that VDR initiates.

[RParker]

Is VMware Tools updated on this VM?

OK, if tools are updated, and the manual snapshot STILL produces the same error, then what?

[admin]

I wanted to confirm that it is VSS problem - thus the suggestion to try a manual snapshot with the appropriate settings (this is important...we know that manual unquiesced snapshots can be taken so it is important to execute a VSS quiesced snapshot).

Some customers have reported that if they go into Services and flip the startup state of the VMware Snapshot Provider and the VSS service, they are able to execute a VSS quiesced snapshot. But this does not seem to be a universal fix.

[kgill]

I tried the manual snapshot with "Snapshot the machine's memory" unchecked and "Quiesce guest fkle system" checked and it failed almost immediately with the error "Cannot create a quiesced snapshot because the create snapshot operation exceeded the time limit for holding off I/O in the frozen virtual machine"

So does that mean the VMWare tools are not up to date? How do I update them?

[GoBuildSomethin]

Has anyone figured this out? I have one VM (Windows Server 2003) out of 50 that

is getting the same error when a VDR backup tries to run. Manual snaps also fail. I have

tried uninstalling and reinstalling the tools, and tried running a

repair. Still fails with job incomplete, failed to create snapshot

error -3960 (cannot quiesce virtual machine). I have also tried

changing the settings for the services.

Thanks for any help.

[chrismi]

I had the same problem. Solution was to activate VSS on the VM and after then deinstallation and reinstallation of the VMware Tools.

[shsimon]

Did the physical machine have any other backup application on it? We were having the same issues with several systems. After hours on the phone the tech removed our Symamtec Backup System Recovery but left the agent still sitting there, removed vmtools, rebooted, reinstalled the tools - ever since we have had good backups without the error.

[jason_farrow]

I have the same issue with a W2K3 running SQL2000. The VM does not have any aditional backup software installed.

I can perform a manual snapshot which works (Snapshot + Memory + Quiesce).

The backup process using VMware Data Recovery fails with -3960 ( cannot quiesce virtual machine). VMware tools has been re-installed at least once and VSS is in automatic startup as opposed to the original manual startup.

I would like to see some additional movement on this as this is the first of quite a few VMs for this customer that are using SQL and will need backing up via VCDR

http://vSphere 4.0.0 Build 20811, VCDR 1.1.0.707

[LUTZGMBH]

Hi,

I had the same issue, but now I solved this problem.

• go to "services.msc" - then activate the VSS (Volume Shadowcopy Service)

• deinstall the vmTools

• install with custom installation - you have to uncheck the "paravirtual SCSI" and the "VSS-Support"

After Reboot backups will work fine.

Best Regards

[lschuetz]

Hi,

thanks for this hint. Unchecking the "paravirtual SCSI" and the "VSS-Support" during a VMWare Tools reinstall fixed the issue for me.

However, could anyone please confirm that this is a best practice? Or, in other words: could anyone confirm that disabling these components will not result in reduced performance?

Thanks in advance,

L. Schütz

[SimonShaw]

This worked for me as well.

Set VSS to Automatic.

Uninstall vmware tools

Reboot and reinstall minus VSS support and paravirtual scsi.

vmware data recovery then works fine.

[perol01]

the complete workaround from Vmware is there:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1031298