Opened 11 years ago
Closed 8 years ago
#12385 closed defect (obsolete)
Regression: snapshot merging scratch space allocated on wrong filesystem
| Reported by: | Bob | Owned by: | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Component: | VMM | Version: | VirtualBox 4.3.2 |
| Keywords: | scratch space allocation | Cc: | |
| Guest type: | all | Host type: | Linux |
Description
Up to VB 4.2, scratch space for snapshot merging seems to have been allocated on the snapshot filesystem. This makes sense - snapshot space grows (and shrinks with deletions), so that users have to be aware that that space needs to be managed. In VB 4.3.2, some of the scratch space is allocated on the filesystem of the base image. This is a serious problem (for me, but I doubt I will be alone). If you are using a fixed-size .vdi, then it makes sense to allocate it its own partition (avoid fragmentation etc., perhaps other reasons), and since it is supposed to be fixed size, to allocate the partition only marginally larger than the vdi. 4.3 breaks this. The resulting errors are below.
This was for an 18 GB .vdi resident on a 20GB (according to lvm) logical volume - I suspect there may be some GB-GiB confusion there. Anyway, I can be quite certain that the problem was use of scratch space on the .vdi filesystem, because the problem went away when I resized it to 22GB (but it will presumably reappear if I do a delete that requires over 2GB merge scratch space). I'm guessing this was probably an accidental change, but please can you revert it? I can see how it would be missed in testing, but for some users it will be a serious regression. For me, because the filesystem is on a logical volume, it just causes wasted space. For users with fixed partitions, it will be a major headache.
Transcript before resizing of the logical volume:
VBoxManage snapshot ubu_test delete ubuVB4.3.2 0%... Progress state: NS_ERROR_OUT_OF_MEMORY VBoxManage: error: Snapshot operation failed VBoxManage: error: Unable to merge storage '/ubuntu/ubu_test.vdi' - not enough free storage space. VBoxManage: error: Details: code NS_ERROR_OUT_OF_MEMORY (0x8007000e), component SessionMachine, interface IMachine VBoxManage: error: Context: "int handleSnapshot(HandlerArg*)" at line 431 of file VBoxManageSnapshot.cpp
Change History (2)
comment:1 by , 11 years ago
comment:2 by , 8 years ago
| Resolution: | → obsolete |
|---|---|
| Status: | new → closed |
Please reopen if still relevant with a recent VirtualBox release.


I'm guessing that maybe this is a tougher problem than I thought. If so, and as an interim, it would be helpful if the error message could indicate where the storage was short. I'm facing this problem right now, where I'm having trouble finding enough storage for both the snapshot folder and the .vdi - it would be very helpful to know which one was short of storage.
PS if there is any other way I can help, I'm happy to do so.