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Druva Documentation

VMware backups fails for Windows 2008 R2 with winerror 1168

 

Problem description

VMware backup job fails with the following error:

An error occurred while quiescing the virtual machine.

The error is encountered despite of the following verifications: 

  • Output of the command Vssadmin list writers shows WMI, ASR, System writers are timed out.
  • Restart of the VSS service, gives the same result.
  • VMware tools are also updated.
  • Server is rebooted. 

Cause

This is a known issue with VMware for Windows 2008 servers

Review the VMware KB for more information. 

Traceback

  •  Error Code: VMWARE_VMOMI1  is logged under Phoenix.log
  • Event viewer of the Virtual Machine server shows Event ID – 8193

/var/log/Phoenix/Backup/<backupsetId>/Phoenix.log

"agents/vmware/vmwareAgent.py", line 4210, in do_snapshot\n  File "agents/vmware/vSphereAdapter.py", line 1094, in create_snapshot\nSyncError: An error occurred while quiescing the virtual machine. Please retry the backup/restore again. (#100060001 : vim.fault.ApplicationQuiesceFault) (Error Code : VMWARE_VMOMI1)\n', 'error_code': 4295360513, 'error_msg': 'An error occurred while quiescing the virtual machine. Please retry the backup/restore again.'}]

Event Viewer shows

Event id - 8193

IOCTL_DISK_SET_SNAPSHOT_INFO(\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE1) fails with winerror 1168. hr = 0x80070490, Element not found.

Resolution

Disable the Enable VMware tools quiescing option from the backup policy for that virtual machine. For more information, see Update a backup policy

Note: If the same policy is applied for other virtual machines, it will affect all the servers.