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"The attempted operation cannot be performed in the current state" when creating a virtual machine snapshot (1000959)

Last Updated: 10/15/2020Categories: TroubleshootingTotal Views: 108668Language:
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Learn how VMware Skyline Advisor and Skyline Health Diagnostics work together to provide proactive intelligence and self-service log analysis.

Use Skyline Advisor to avoid issues before they occur across VCF, vSphere, vSAN, NSX, vROps & Horizon. Skyline Findings are based on top KBs, VMSAs/CVEs and design best practices.

Use Skyline Health Diagnostics to root cause vSphere & vSAN logs when an issue occurs. Skyline Health Diagnostic Findings are based on top KBs and VMSA/CVEs. You can use the Skyline Health Diagnostics tool in online or offline mode.

If you require additional help from technical support, please use Skyline Advisor to initiate a Log Assist to reduce time to upload logs. TSEs can also initiate logs to reduce effort.

Details

You cannot create a virtual machine snapshot

You see this failed message similar to:

The attempted operation cannot be performed in the current state (powered off)

Or

The attempted operation cannot be performed in the current state (powered on)

You see this error on the ESXi command line (vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/my-vmfs3/sample-vm-name.vmx createsnapshot sample-name sample-description 0 0):

VMControl error -3: Invalid arguments

Solution

This issue may occur if the snapshot.current in the .vmsd metadata file points to a non-existent snapshot UID. If the snapshot.current points to a non-existent snapshot UID, attempting to create a snapshot causes the virtual machine to power off.

In this example, the snapshot.current points to 38. This issue occurs if none of the snapshots have a UID of 38:

root@bshp020 my-vm1]# cat sample-vm-name.vmsd
snapshot.lastUID = "39"
snapshot.numSnapshots = "0"
snapshot.current = "38"
snapshot0.uid = "39"
snapshot0.filename = "sample-vm-name-Snapshot39.vmsn"
snapshot0.displayName = "Consolidate Helper"
snapshot0.description = "Helper snapshot for online consolidate."
snapshot0.createTimeHigh = "274900"
snapshot0.createTimeLow = "-753698745"
snapshot0.numDisks = "1"
snapshot0.disk0.fileName = "sample-vm-name.vmdk"
snapshot0.disk0.node = "scsi0:0"
snapshot.needConsolidate = "FALSE"

To resolve this issue, perform one of these options:

If the virtual machine does not have any snapshots, delete the existing .vmsd file. The file is recreated the next time a snapshot is created or the next time the virtual machine is powered ON.

If the virtual machine has existing snapshots:

Modify snapshot.current in the .vmsd so that it points to an existing snapshot.

When the virtual machine is up and running, commit all the snapshots, power off the virtual machine, then delete the virtual machine's .vmsd file. The file is recreated the next time a snapshot is created or the next time the virtual machine is powered ON.

Detectable by VMware SkylineTM

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End Of General Availability of the Free vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi 7.x and 8.x) (2107518)

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Download and Install VMware Fusion (2014097)

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