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Why is my virtual machine “Off-Critical”?

  • Artikel

In Windows 8 / Windows Server 2012 we have introduced a new state for a virtual machine to be in.  This is called “Off-Critical”.

MissingVM

What is happening here is that there is a virtual machine registered with Hyper-V – but we cannot find the XML configuration file for that virtual machine.  In the past, this would have just caused the virtual machine to disappear from Hyper-V Manager.  In Windows 8 / Windows Server 2012 we now show the virtual machine in Hyper-V Manager – but mark it as “Off-Critical”.

The most common reason to have a virtual machine that is “Off-Critical” is because you had the virtual machine stored on a file server or removable disk (e.g. USB) that is not currently available. 

When a virtual machine is in this state you have two options:

  • Delete the virtual machine.  This will simply tell Hyper-V to stop looking for this virtual machine.
  • Restore the missing storage (e.g. reconnect the USB disk)

Note that in the beta build, after you have restored the missing storage you will need to stop and start the virtual machine management service for us to detect that the configuration file is back.  Once you have done this – everything should be good again:

MissingVM Back

Cheers,
Ben

Comments

  • Anonymous
    May 15, 2012
    May be I'm wrong, but I have seen this state in some old 2008 R2 Hyper-V's and I think even in a 2008 Hyper-V.

  • Anonymous
    May 22, 2012
    We have always had "paused-critical" but not "Off-critical"

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2013
    Found this - I have 3 VMs in this state. But the storage is available, I can open the XML files and read them... I can;t find anything wrong with the file structure. What else can cause this state? If I find the {GUID}.xml shortcut and rename it then the server is removed from Hyper-V. If I rename it back then it reappears but with this state... if I rename this file and create a new shortcut then the shortcut properties don;t seem correct - Hyper-V will not recognise it Any help?

  • Anonymous
    May 17, 2013
    Thanks this post pointed me in the right direction - VM was on an external drive...

  • Anonymous
    July 18, 2013
    Hello Ben, I found your post while I was troubleshooting the Hyper-V on my Laptop. Actually my problem was different, but your article was leading me to the solution. Please have a look: jensit.wordpress.com/.../client-hyper-v-offcritical Best Regards, Jens

  • Anonymous
    August 08, 2013
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 23, 2013
    Thank you information, but need more materials..

  • Anonymous
    March 30, 2014
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 12, 2014
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    September 12, 2014
    The error can also occur when the Hyper-V does not properly stop a virtual machine, in this case, clean the directory <VM Name> Virtual Machines <VM GUID>

  • Anonymous
    October 03, 2014
    This problem occurs on my lab machine.  It looks like it's because the VMs are on my second drive which is Bitlocker protected.  It looks like the Virtual machine service starts before Bitlocker has unlocked the drive.  I'm thinking of adding a dependency to the Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management Service for the BitLocker Drive Encryption Service.  In my case I can stop and start the Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management and the VMs look fine.

  • Anonymous
    December 03, 2014
    We see this all the time with our  iSCSI attached storage when we restart the windows 2012 R2 Hyper-V server.   Seems the iSCSI service  cannot get the volumes available soon enough and VMMS  reports errors accessing the volumes.   The status does clear after 1-2 minutes.  Sadness, as this breaks the Automatic Start Action.   Seeing 4096 event id entries for each of the Off-critical VMs.  Using software iSCSI (MSiSCSI) vs a dedicated iSCSI controller.

  • Anonymous
    August 17, 2016
    I needed to restore a file from the backup of a VM. I had a backup created with Windows Server Backup, but the only option that was suitable was to restore the whole VM to an external drive. Having rescued the file, I unplugged the USB drive and then I got the "off critical" message. OK, plugging the USB back in cured that problem but now the VM is reliant on the USB in some way and can't be unplugged. This is also preventing Windows Server Backup from working - it returns "this process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process. Anyone got any ideas?

  • Anonymous
    May 10, 2017
    Our Veeam 9.5 would crash our 2012 R2 CSV when backing up.That has corrupted one of the VMs and it shows up with its SSID along with "Off-Critical" in the Hyper-V console.I can't delete this VM as it shows up the same way on other two hosts of the same cluster.Hopefully when I restart hosts, the VMM service will restart and I should be able to delete this VM and re-import it.