When attempting a quiesced backup it fails with the above error message. The exact same error message is visible in the virtual machines tasks and events in vSphere.
There are several causes for this issue:
- Because the I/O in the virtual machine is high and the quiescing operation is unable to flush all the data to disk, while further I/O is created.
- The virtual machine does not have free space within the Windows OS.
- The time stamp within the vm and on the ESX(i) host are out of sync.
- One or more VSS writers are not in a stable state.
- A third pary VSS provider is installed on the vm.
- Move backup task to a time when the vm's OS is not busy
- Free up disk space on all the disks within the vm
- Be sure that both the vm and the ESX(i) host have time sync (NTP) enabled
- Use vssadmin list writers to check the status of the writers on the vm
- Use vssadmin list providers to verify only the Microsoft System provider is listed
- Reinstalling VMware Tools may resolve this error.
This is a VMware issue. Please, also refer to this VMware KB article .
