Cannot delete old and unused VM snapshot.

[Shlomi Fish]

Hi all.

I've created a snapshot of my Debian Testing VM (running on Mandriva Linux Cooker) a long time ago, and now I don't want it anymore, but VirtualBox won't let me delete it.

I'm getting:

Failed to delete the snapshot Before hard-disk resize of the virtual machine Debian No. 1.
Hard disk '/home/shlomif/.VirtualBox/HardDisks/Debian No. 1.vdi' has more than one child hard disk (2).

Details:


Result Code: 
NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component: 
Machine
Interface: 
IMachine {6d9212cb-a5c0-48b7-bbc1-3fa2ba2ee6d2}

The VM is turned off and the snapshot is occupying unnecessary space on my hard disk. Please help me delete it.

Regards,

-- Shlomi Fish

[cameron]

Hi,

I'm getting this same problem. I can't delete the machine or the snapshots.

Result Code: E_FAIL (0x80004005) Component: Machine Interface: IMachine {6d9212cb-a5c0-48b7-bbc1-3fa2ba2ee6d2}

Cheers

[Glenn J. Schworak]

I am experiencing the exact same issue and get the same message when I try to delete a snapshot.

I can make new snapshots and delete them, but not this old snapshot. I hope there is a fix soon.

[grof]

I have exactly the same problem in VBox v4.0.4. Windows xp sp3 as host and Ubuntu 10.10 as guest. I have an old snapshot that I am unable to delete with above error. I can still create new snapshots and delete this newly created snapshots.

[grof]

I have solved the problem. I shutdowned virtual machine. In Virtual Media Manager on Hard Disk tab there was one main vdi file with two snapshots displayed. First one was 36 KB in size and another was 3 GB in size. I have deleted 36 KB vdi file from Virtual Media Manager. Then from main VBox GUI Snapshots I was able to delete the snapshot. So after deleting the last snapshot the Snapshot GUI displayed I have any snapshot.

At this moment there was no snapshots in GUI, but I have checked the C:\Documents and Settings\[user]\VirtualBox VMs\[vm]\Snapshots folder and there was 5 files with sum of 7 GB of disk. I manually deleted all of this files from Snapshot folder. Then I run a virtual machine and machine runs OK. I can also create snapshots and delete them without any additional problem.

Problem solved.

[$roman]

This is still happening. I had version 4.0.10 and this error occurred. I upgraded to version 4.2.6 and of course the error persists. I don't know if it just can't figure out what to do because of the damage that was already done or if this version is just as faulty. I suspect the latter. It's a shame. VirtualBox was fairly stable for a couple years. I thought the really bad stuff was behind us, but as another user pointed out, this is a disasterous core functionalty bug. It also has been frequently freezing up and crashing on me. It's like 2009 all over again. Very disappointing. I'm using Windows 7 x64 with a 32 bit Windows 7 guest. The snapshot was taken with the guest machine shut down. I can't get any more careful than that.

[kenkyee]

Still happens with latest 4.2.12 if you run out of disk space. You'll get an orphaned snapshot.

Deleting the orphaned snapshot as mentioned by abcuser fixes it.

[cszeto]

It looks like a variaton or part of the same bug still exists with 4.3.6.

Running into "has more than one child hard disk" error and refusal to detele snapshot.

Only possible event which might have an impact is that the snapshot image was reverted back multiple times prior to its attempted detetion.

Manually removing the "child" snapshot files/images allows the deletion, but is tough to determine within the "Virtual Media Manager" interface, so chances of deleting the wrong files is very high.

This was observed on 64-bit Ubuntu 12.04 with all current updates as of 2014/1/2.

[Santhos]

Hi, running on a Mac OS X 10.9.3 and vb 4.3.10 I get the same error. Is there a fix or a workaround?

[isalgueiro]

This is still an issue in 4.3.24. My VM has two disk images, one of them with two diff files, but i have only one snapshot.

As a workaround you need to open Virtual Media Manager, expand the disk image node and delete the .vdi file that states Attached to: = Not Attached.

[spawn2qc]

Make a clone of the current state and delete the VM with the snapshot :-P

[ssd]

This is still an issue with 5.0.14r105127. I had four snap-shots and to release disk space I tried to delete the last one. VBox stated it was in the process of merging the snap-shot but after about 24% it reported error and not I cannot remove the last snapshot and have lost the current state of the machine.

[$roman]

I have also noticed that if there is not a certain amount of space available (don't know how much), a snapshot can not be deleted. So, a snapshot can use up all of your drive space and make the VM unusable (it won't run). To delete that snapshot would free up enough space to make it fine. But one can't delete the snapshot. So, you're screwed until you can add more drive space or move everything to a new large enough drive. You can't delete anything, you can't do anything. By not noticing that you were running out of space, you are screwed. It would be a nice feature, a nice extra to have VirtualBox warn a person and give them the option to do something, like "You have reached the threshold where if you use more space, you won't be able to delete a snapshot. You may delete a snapshot now to free up space." (or do something else bla bla)