Failed to Delete Snapshot

[Eukaryote]

Have not been able to delete this snapshots for months. Was really hoping 4.3.4 would fix this.

Failed to delete the snapshot before rvm of the virtual machine new-pferd. Hard disk 'C:\Users\vern\VirtualBox VMs\new-pferd\new-pferd.vdi' has more than one child hard disk (2). Result Code: E_FAIL (0x80004005) Component: SessionMachine Interface: IMachine {480cf695-2d8d-4256-9c7c-cce4184fa048}

[kirsche40]

I have the same problem too with VBox 4.3.12. In my case I cloned an existing VM but used option "linked clone". Now I am unable to delete the generated snapshot or to de-link the new VM. In my opinion the feature "linked clone" is useless because we have no additional benefit from its current implementation. What we need is a true link to a virtual HDD.

All I wanted was to have one virtual HDD which is used by different VM configurations (my Configuration 1 has an additional USB2Ethernet device).

The issue seems that the linked clone has a snapshot which is part of configuration 1:

<HardDisk uuid="{dd735b8c-2b97-45f2-b0b9-8252adfeba3a}" location="Debian_40GB.vdi" format="VDI" type="Normal">
<HardDisk uuid="{1ab292e6-a9c6-4741-9bd3-e13df627a250}" location="Snapshots/{1ab292e6-a9c6-4741-9bd3-e13df627a250}.vdi" format="VDI"/>
<HardDisk uuid="{eb1360bd-fa57-4939-b6f9-745d9b11b688}" location="c:/virtualBox/Debian (w/o u2e)/Snapshots/{eb1360bd-fa57-4939-b6f9-745d9b11b688}.vdi" format="VDI"/>

If I try to delete the current snapshot over VBox UI a new snapshot inside original VM is generated which is wrong behavior. I have no idea why the WM should recreate a snapshot if I want to erase an older one.

[kirsche40]

Possible duplicate: #12130

[kirsche40]

I found one possible way to get rid of this annoying "feature". If I make a "full clone" of my "configuration 2" - which is the "linked clone" - I get a full working virtual HDD. Now I am able to delete both old VMs manually.

[webbertiger]

Here is the link helped me solve this issue:

​http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.emulators.virtualbox.user/3693

Basically, use Virtual Media Manager to find the extra branch and remove it.

[Klaus Espenlaub]

This is at most a documentation/error message improvement request. The behavior you're reporting is unavoidable, as a linked clone is creating a child image under the snapshot.

If the linked clone is kept around you simply can't delete the snapshot it's based on.

[anonymous1]

Cc: list

[RealHandy]

The link above to gmane.org didn't work for me just now, but I found this one, which I'm guessing probably gives the same Virtual Media Manager answer on how to delete unattached child disks, and it worked for me. Thanks to Mark Cranness for it.

​https://sourceforge.net/p/vbox-users/mailman/message/29558052/

It says:

Use the Virtual Media Manager (File > Virtual Media Manager, Ctrl+D) and expand the tree under the hard disk(s) concerned.

You will likely see a tree structure, where one of the nodes (the one that says "... (Snapshot B)" in the Attached To label) has TWO children underneath it. One of those child VDI files corresponds to snapshot C, and one is likely an orphan.

Click on the one that has "Attached to:" = "Not Attached", and remove it.

Now the tree should look like a linear chain (every node only has a single child), and you should be able to now delete snapshot D.

Take a backup/copy of everything before, in case it goes wrong!