Remove Snapshot — Operation Time Out
About two weeks ago, one of my virtual machine was suddently turn off when VCB was running to backup that VM. I cannot turn on the VM. The problem happens because of the CID-Parent CID mismatch. The snapshot created by the VCB process have mismatch ID. The problem already solved, but too bad, the VCB process left 6 VMs with snapshot named _VCB and/or Consolidate Helper – 0.
At first I am not aware about the snapshot left by the VCB process. I realized it when I saw that my storage was fill up rapidly. It was the snapshot “delta” file that taken space on my storage. Then I decided to delete (committed) the snapshot.
Snapshot on one VM was deleted smoothly. It take about an hour to finish. When I tried to delete the snapshots on two other VMs, this error message “Remove Snapshot: Operation Time Out” appeared. When I tried to delete the snapshot again, the message said I cannot perform the task on not existance object. Oops…. I was shocked. I thought I will have big problems, at least with these 2 VMs.
But, thanks God. After panic situation about 15 minutes, I saw that the snapshot was deleted. Luckily, VMware still committing the operation in the background. I realized this “operation time out error” some times appear when the delta file is large.
So, when you try to delete a snaphost from a VM in VMware ESX 3.5 and receive this error message “Remove Snapshot: Operation Time Out”, don’t be panic. VMware still working in the background. Take a break, relax, have some coffee 🙂 Just wait and check again after an hour. The snapshot will be deleted from the Snapshot Manager window.