Virtual Machines freeze, vmtools stop running

Question

Greetings

I'm encountering an error on certain new virtual machines and I'm looking for assistance. The affected clients are Windows 2003 R2 sp2, Std Edition running the latest vmtools version on a ESX cluster that's running ESX 3.5.0 build 110268.

The Avamar client installed is version 4.0.3-24. The clients activate normally. When I initiate the first Windows filesystem backup, things start normally, the system state backup appears to complete, but as the system state backup progresses, the machine becomes more sluggish, finally to the point of unresponsiveness. At some point (sorry for the ambiguity) Vcenter reports that the tools are no longer running.

Anyone encounter something like this before? There is plenty of free drive space available. The clients activate without issue. Thoughts?

Thanks in advance.....
--brerrabbit

daleyp · Answer

Not seen an issue quite like this, but certainly looks VSS related:-

1. Try a filesystem backup without using VSS, to confirm.
2. If 1 is positive have a look at event logs.
3. Check the avtar logs in ava/var directory - what is waiting on do you eventualy see a failure?

brerrabbit1 · Answer

Yesterday I was able to backup all 5 of the affected machines if I skipped the system state backup, so at least that's a start. Problem is that 4 of the 5 machines are heavy web servers running IIS, so getting that system state backup is important. What else would you suggest to troubleshoot the VSS issue (I'm guessing that's at the heart of the matter)?

Thanks
-brerrabbit

Avamar

Virtual Machines freeze, vmtools stop running

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