Symptom
A user is unable to browse files on a snapshot for a Windows 2008 R2 virtual machine (ESXi or ESX 4.1 and higher).
The following messages appear in the cvd.log file:
Disk:[<Name>] filtered during snap protect operation Unable to open any disks on VM [<Name>_GX_BACKUP] XXX attempted
Cause
File-level browse of a virtual machine snapshot fails if the page files for the VM are filtered out. The virtual machine snapshot cannot be mounted because it needs the page file for the VM. The page file is unavailable because it resides on a datastore that is filtered for backup.
This issue occurs when the disk.EnableUUID attribute is set to true for the virtual machine. The disk.EnableUUID attribute enables application-level quiescing. If the UUID is not enabled, VMware performs file-system consistent quiescing.
Resolution
During the restore, file-level browsing succeeds if the user selects a MediaAgent that has the Virtual Server Agent installed and has access to the datastore that contains the page files. On the Advanced Restore Options dialog, go to the Data Path tab to specify a MediaAgent.
To resolve this issue, set the disk.EnableUUID attribute to false and run the IntelliSnap backup again on the virtual machines where page files were filtered.
To modify the UUID setting in vSphere 5.1:
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Select the VM and power it off.
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On the Summary tab, click Edit Settings.
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On the Virtual Machine Properties dialog, go to the Options tab.
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Select the General field under Advanced.
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Click the Configuration Parameters button.
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Enter the disk.EnableUUID attribute and set the value to false.
As long as there is not a backup copy or auxiliary copy in progress, users should be able to browse files from the VM snapshot.
Disabling the UUID attribute does not affect applications that do not use Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS), such as Microsoft SQL, Microsoft Exchange, or Active Directory.
Additional Information
See the following articles: