VDI lost due to failed Discard Snapshot attempt due to out of disk space condition

[Buckwheat]

Host platform: Dell Inspiron 1300/CPU:1.8G/RAM:2G OS: Win XP Pro SP2

My VirtualBox test platform: Guest OS: Win XP Pro SP2

I was down to approx 1.9G free disk space so was cleaning up... Noticed that test platform (with 1 snapshot) was consuming approx 9G (base VDI=6G, snapshot=3G). I selected Discard Snapshot - there was a LOT of disk activity and progress was slow... I noted progress at 77% approx 15 min after initiating discard operation. When I returned, there was a VirtualBox error dialog (unfortunately I did not make note of the error as I assumed it would be in the log - but it was not!). My recollection is that the error reported was an out of disk situation (ERR NO SPACE? or similar)

I am now unable to start the VM as the following error is reported: VERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND - see attached log files for details.

Sure was an easy way to free up 3G! ;)

[Jarl]

Same MAJOR issue happened to me too.

I had an Ubuntu installation. The .vdi file was 4GB. The env was set to dynamic HD (max 30GB if I recall correctly). Snapshot 1 was 20GB. Snapshot 2 was ~5GB.

I started a "discard snapshot 1" process and run into a out-of-discspace situation. The .vdi was 16GB when the problem occured.

Suggested fixes:

1. Add a "pause" button for the "discard snapshot process" thus giving user the possibility to free up disc space.

2a. Don't delete the snapshot file if the merge fails => enable possible "try discarding snapshot again" feature (will require implementation work, I assume) or 2b. If no such "try discarding snapshot again" feature can be implemented, you might as well delete stuff from the snapshot file while the merge is in progress - thus freeing disk space. You woun't be able to re-use the file if the merge fails anyway.

Now I have the same situation as reported by the bug filer...

[aeichner]

Please reopen if still relevant with a recent VirtualBox release.