Hyper-V live migration fails for some VMs

Andreas Krohn 6 Reputation points
2022-09-20T12:57:56.803+00:00

Hi all,

I have a strange problem here with Hyper-V live migration.
I have two hosts with identical hardware running Windows Server 2022. Both are on the same patch level and have no other role than Hyper-V installed. Hyper-V-configuration is also the same on both servers. They are not clustered, but live migration is enabled.

When I initiate a live migration, it works for some VMs and on some it fails. This is not random, the result remains the same for the specific VMs - but I cannot find a pattern or cause for the failure.

IF live migration fails, the error is always the same:
Virtual machine migration operation failed at migration destination.
Failed to transfer log files information.
Virtual machine migration operation for [VM] failed at migration destination [HOST].
[VM] Failed to transfer log files information. The data is invalid. (0x8007000D).

All I found regarding live migration failure troubleshooting pointed to something like 'check connection, access permissions, blabla' but there can't be an issue like that imho since some machines can be live-migrated (in both ways, from host A to B and back from B to A) so there must be something in the VM configuration itself that causes the issue.
A workaround would be to create new VMs using the existing VHDX-files, but that causes follow-up issues, since some IDs (e.g. NICs) change during that process - and this is no final option since two of the affected VMs are DCs!
Besides that I'd like to understand what's going on there.

What I can rule out is:

  • VM OS
  • VM-size (one VM has several hundred GB and can be migrated while others less than 100GB are failing)
  • Age of VM
  • Configuration version (all are on V10.0)
  • VM Generation as only cause (at least there are some G2-VMs that are failing, but also all G1-VMs left)

So, does anybody have an idea how I can solve this?

EDIT: I completely forgot to mention that none of the VMs have been initially created on one of the hosts I'm talking about. They have all been migrated from older servers running Windows Server 2019 via export-vm -> import on new server -> update configuration from 9.0 to 10.0.

Hyper-V
Hyper-V
A Windows technology providing a hypervisor-based virtualization solution enabling customers to consolidate workloads onto a single server.
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5 answers

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  1. Xu Gu (Shanghai Wicresoft Co,.Ltd.) 501 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor
    2022-09-28T07:45:38.28+00:00

    Hi AndreasKrohn,

    Given that you say that there can't be problems like "checking connections, access rights...", possibly due to the settings of the VM itself causing the problem above, my suggestion is the following:
    (1) Check the hosts are at the same level of patching and whether they can update to the latest rollup.
    (2) Update the BIOS, firmware and third party drivers.
    (3) Check whether the virtual machines have the latest matching integration services.
    (4) You can also check the compatibility problem by running the command:
    Compare-VM -Name vmname -DestinationHost Hostname
    Where vmname and hostname are the name of the vm itself and the name of the target host, respectively.
    (5) The following article is about Troubleshooting about live migration issues, I hope it can help you:
    troubleshoot-live-migration-issues

    Best Regards,
    Xu Gu

    0 comments No comments

  2. Andreas Krohn 6 Reputation points
    2022-09-28T09:14:18.85+00:00

    Hello Xu Gu,

    thanks for providing feedback and giving some hints - although they didn't solve the problem, but let's get into the details:

    (1) Both hosts are running the same patch level and OS version (20348.1006).

    (2) Using the available vendor tools I couln't find any updates for drivers and/or firmware for the server's components (both servers have identical hardware).

    (3) According to Microsoft, I think this should not be necessary on Windows Server 2022, but I double checked this and all VMs (migratable and non-migrateable) have the same integration services version installed (10.0.17763).

    (4) This is a strange one, but doesn't lead me to new thoughts regarding the source of the issue. The reported incompatibilities where ALL reported for EVERY VM, even for the ones than can be live-migrated and even for those on which I applied the workaround I stated in my initial post:

    • 21026 "Virtual machine migration operation for [VM] failed at migration destination [HOST]" - No reason given why it exactly failed. Maybe just a summary-ID?
    • 24000 "The virtual machine [VM] is not compatible with physical computer [HOST]" - No reason given why the VM should not be compatible at all (and why the VM is able to be running on a host with the same 'incompatible' hard- and software).
    • 40010 "Virtual Hard Disk file not found." - I think this is because that file is indeed missing on the migration destination, since it's created during the migration on target host and removed on the source host.
      In summary, there are incompatibilities, but none of them leads me to a solution since they're all the same for every VM. Besides these there were no incompatibilities reported.

    (5) I worked through the post you linked, but there was also nothing helpful. Some suggestions did not fit my setup (e.g. there's no cluster), behaviour (live migration fails almost instantly) or error message (live migration fails at migration destination). I checked some settings anyway but there was nothing to correct.

    I appreciate any further ideas to track this down.

    Regards
    Andreas


  3. Andreas Krohn 6 Reputation points
    2022-10-04T09:23:51.66+00:00

    Hi Xu Gu,

    it must be some very specific maybe rare issue.
    I know the documents you've listed (in fact, I took the first one as reference when I set up the new hosts) and I also took every info I could get about the VM-configuration using Hyper-V manager and Powershell, but I still can't find any difference between migrateable and non-migrateable VMs.

    I think I'm stuck here, so I took the weekend to apply the workaround to most* VMs, and everyone of them is working with a freshly created configuration. So, I consider this topic as 'done' somehow, but even if I have no real answer to the question what causes the issue, I appreciate your suggestions and ideas.

    *except the DCs - it may not be bad to have them 'fixed' to their hosts, and they will most likely replaced in the future with hosts running Windows Server 2022.

    Regards

    Andreas


  4. J Aus 0 Reputation points
    2023-01-24T00:45:23.2866667+00:00

    I have the same exact issue w/ Windows Server 2019 Server and ver 9 VMs.


  5. Karel Fischl 0 Reputation points
    2024-01-07T09:35:40.5166667+00:00

    I have same issue. Interesting is that only for VM that have TPM encryption enabled. I have correct certificates on both host (if I simple move VM by filesystem and import that all working fine - even with TPM/Bitlocker). Just live migration failing. It is gen 2 VM.

    (Host are HyperVServer 2019)


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