Sign in
 
HomeWindows Server 2012Windows Server 2008 R2Windows Server 2003LibraryForums
Windows Server TechCenter >
> 
> 
Unable to delete Initial Replica Snapshots in Hyper-V 2012

Answered Unable to delete Initial Replica Snapshots in Hyper-V 2012

  • Wednesday, January 09, 2013 3:02 PM
     
     
    Sign In to Vote
    0

    Upon multiple failed attempts to configure a VM for replication, towards a destination server that appeared to have a hardware error, the replication snapshots cannot be deleted. No option to delete appears in the context-menu of the snapshot.

    The following has been attempted to no avail:

    1. Remove the replication configuration from the VM.
    2. Shutting down the VM. The merge does not start automatically, as it should.
    3. Restart Hyper-V Manager service on the Hyper-V host.
    4. Restart the Hyper-V host.

    Is it time for a manual snapshot merge?

    Any suggestions?

     

All Replies

  • Wednesday, January 09, 2013 3:39 PM
     
     
    Sign In to Vote
    0

    hello

    you can try why not..

    backup everything before doin it.

    Regards

    ------------------------------------------------------- I understand a little computers.

     
  • Thursday, January 10, 2013 3:18 AM
    Moderator
     
     
    Sign In to Vote
    0

    Hi,

    > towards a destination server that appeared to have a hardware error, the replication snapshots cannot be deleted

    Did you mean Hyper-V Replica feature in Windows Server 2012? In the feature, there is a Primary server (source server) and a Replica server (destination server). Did you mean the error happen on the Replica server?

    Using Hyper-V Replica, an initial copy of all your virtual hard disks (VHDs) must be transferred to the Replica server. This operation needs to happen before regular replication operations can start. Hyper-V Replica provides three different options for initial virtual machine replication.

    • The first option is to transfer your selected virtual hard disks over the network to your Replica server. Using network replication, you can start your initial replication immediately or schedule it to happen at a specified time. 
    • Hyper-V Replica also gives you the option of using an existing backup copy on the Replica server. This means you can transfer a backup copy of your production virtual machine to your Replica server. 
    • Finally, Hyper-V Replica gives you the option of using external media. You can copy your selected VHDs to external media and deliver the external media to the Replica site. This is especially useful if your business operates in areas of expensive connectivity, or if you have to manage remote or regional server locations.

    Which option did you use?

    > No option to delete appears in the context-menu of the snapshot.

    What’s the error? On the Replica server, you want to merge snapshot?

    Check that and give us feedback for further troubleshooting.

    For more information please refer to following MS articles:

    Hyper-V Replica Overview
    http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj134172.aspx
    Deploy Hyper-V Replica
    http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj134207.aspx

    Hope this helps!

    TechNet Subscriber Support

    If you are TechNet Subscription user and have any feedback on our support quality, please send your feedback here.

     

    Lawrence

    TechNet Community Support

     
  • Thursday, January 10, 2013 1:17 PM
     
     
    Sign In to Vote
    0

    Hi Lawrence

    Thank you for answering.

    As the subject implies, it is indeed Hyper-V running on WS2012. As far as I am concerned, Initial replica snapshots pertain to primary servers only and Windows Server 2012 only. Therefore I did not mention it explicitly. Am I wrong about that?
    In all attempts to initiate the replication, I used the immediate network transfer method. What happened next was that the transfer startet, and ran for a number of minutes before the RAID controller on the Replica server failed. That is, after a considerable amount of data copied. Unfortunately, because of the intermittent nature of the hardware problem, I did not realize the root cause (hardware). And I attempted multiple times before I could see a pattern in the problem.
    Then I disabled replication for the guest on the replication server. After half an hour the setting had not propagated to the primary server, so I disabled replication for the guest in question on the primary server also.

    To make things more complicated, another guest completed the initial replication process towards the faulty replica server, and the Initial Replica snapshots merged and disappeared as expected.

    Below I have included a screenshot from the (primary) Hyper-V server, which illustrates the situation.

    As you can see, there is no option to delete (merge) the snapshots, as the context menu looks the same for all snapshots. There's nothing I can do, and therefore no error.

    Hi,

     
  • Thursday, January 10, 2013 6:58 PM
     
     
    Sign In to Vote
    0
    Please can you tell me the controller what is ?

    ------------------------------------------------------- I understand a little computers.

     
  • Thursday, January 10, 2013 8:56 PM
     
     
    Sign In to Vote
    0

    Hi

    The controller in the replica server is an Adaptec 5805. I'm not 100% sure that it's the controller or some other defect in the server, that caused the controller to malfunction. Until I have the time to investigate further, the server is taken out of production. Hence I don't think the controller is relevant to the issue of undeletable snapshots.

    Right now, my primary concern is to find a way to merge the data in the snapshots, into the the main VHD, without disrupting service.

     
  • Thursday, January 10, 2013 9:38 PM
     
     Answered
    Sign In to Vote
    1

    i see. was asking because with some lsi and dell perc controllers i had strange behaviours.

    then.. as i suggested you before go for a manual merge, or at least try... back everything before !

    here a good guide

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/6257.manually-merge-avhd-to-vhd-in-hyper-v.aspx

    Regards

    ------------------------------------------------------- I understand a little computers.

     
  • Thursday, January 10, 2013 11:52 PM
     
     
    Sign In to Vote
    0

    Hi Ales75

    Thank you for your suggestion. However, my question is actually the opposite. As you might have guessed from my question, I have already read the article you mention. I can rephrase my question:

    How can I avoid a lenghty, offline, manual process as described in article, in favour of a process that kan be conducted while the server is running.

    It should theoretically be possible with Hyper-V 6.2. If you know of such af method, I would appreciate it very much.

     
  • Friday, January 11, 2013 12:38 AM
     
     Proposed Answer
    Sign In to Vote
    1

    aaa ok..

    correct me if i am worng.. since hyper 3.0 support live merge, you want to go for it without powering off the the vm ocrrect ?

    well honestly i didn't tried this yet.. because it is not happened to me what happened to you.. i mean i have been always able to live merge.

    you can try do it in powershell with merge-vhd

    without trying i suspect that the chan must be offline.

    http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh848581.aspx

    Regards

    ------------------------------------------------------- I understand a little computers.

    • Proposed As Answer by Ales75 Saturday, January 12, 2013 4:34 PM
    •  
     
  • Friday, January 11, 2013 3:24 AM
    Moderator
     
     
    Sign In to Vote
    1

    Hi,

    Have you tried to remove these snapshots using PowerShell command?

    Since in Windows Server 2012, after a virtual machine snapshot is deleted, the storage space that the snapshot consumed before being deleted is now made available while the virtual machine is running. It is no longer necessary to shut down, turn off, or put the virtual machine into a saved state to recover the storage space.

    Examples:

    Deletes all snapshots of virtual machine TestVM whose names starts with Experiment:

    PS C:\> Get-VM TestVM | Remove-VMSnapshot –Name Experiment*

    Note: backup this server before you perform above operation.

    For more information please refer to following MS articles:

    What’s new in Hyper-V Virtual machine snapshots (Windows Server 2012)
    http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831410.aspx#BKMK_snapshots
    Remove-VMSnapshot
    http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh848601.aspx

    Hope this helps!

    TechNet Subscriber Support

    If you are TechNet Subscription user and have any feedback on our support quality, please send your feedback here.

     

    Lawrence

    TechNet Community Support

     
  • Friday, January 11, 2013 4:52 AM
     
     
    Sign In to Vote
    1

    Hello lawrence

    well you command is fine.. but i assumed he want to merge those snaps, not delete them..

    these snaps sounds corrupted in such a way and he cant merge them with the gui, i asked him to try with the shell, but i suspect that wont work.. i dont know well the merge-vhd command in powershell only the basics..

    i think that with it there is a way to lunch a grouped merge and create a disk from the snapshots source.. 

    you are the best organized here.. e true live technet..  can you investigate in this.. ?

    i ma interested to know too..

    Thanks !

    ------------------------------------------------------- I understand a little computers.

     
  • Saturday, January 12, 2013 2:54 PM
     
     Answered
    Sign In to Vote
    0

    The conclusion

    I attempted to use the remove-VMsnapshot cmdlet. Unfortunately using the name of an existing snapshot (cut'n'pasted from the output of Get-VMsnapshot), produce absolutely no result. No output and no action. Interestingly, the same happens when using a nonexisting snapshot name. Shutting down the VM doesn't change this.

    With the server already offline and hours being late, I decided to revert to my original plan (as suggested by Ales75)  and conduct the procedure depicted here:

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/6257.manually-merge-avhd-to-vhd-in-hyper-v.aspx

    It did the trick the server is now back online.

    Thank you both for your interest.

     
  • Saturday, January 12, 2013 4:33 PM
     
     
    Sign In to Vote
    0

    Hello

    Glad you fixed..

    Regards

    ------------------------------------------------------- I understand a little computers.