VMs will not shutdown clean anymore

Shadow Sysop

Member
Mar 7, 2021
53
3
13
41
I'm not sure exactly when this started happening, but VMs no longer shutdown in a clean way, whether initiated from inside the VM or via Shutdown signal from Proxmox GUI. On a shutdown, the VM will hang, requiring a Stop command to be issued in order to shutdown the machine fully. Sometimes, even the stop command does not work, requiring a kill of the VM process from the the host. This is consistent across different OS on each VM (Windows, Ubuntu, CentOS).

pve-manager/7.3-4/d69b70d4 (running kernel: 5.15.39-2-pve)
 
pve-manager/7.3-4/d69b70d4 (running kernel: 5.15.39-2-pve)

This kernel is around half a year old. (Sidenote: PVE 7.3 was released with kernel: 5.15.74.)
Not going to say for sure, that this is your problem, but to start with, I would make sure that the PVE-host is up-to-date and then give it a reboot to boot with a recent kernel. (Or did you pin that kernel on purpose? If yes, why?)

In addition:
  • Standalone node or cluster?
    • If cluster, how does it look like, if you migrate a misbehaving VM to another node and shut it down there?
    • Are all nodes in the cluster on the same PVE-version and...
    • ...also running the same (old) kernel-version?
  • Qemu-guest-agent installed?
    • If yes, is it also enabled in the VM-options?
    • Or disabled, if it is not installed! (Important!)
  • Please provide the full VM-config (qm config VMID) in code-tags of at least one misbehaving VM.
  • Anything in the syslog of the PVE-host and/or the guests?
  • Does this happen with all VMs? Not a single one, that shuts down properly?
    • Everytime or now and then?
  • LXCs behave normal?
 
  • Standalone node or cluster?
    • Cluster, but other in cluster are different hardware so this may or may not be a viable test.
    • Yes
    • No. This node is only rebooted once or twice per year.
  • Qemu-guest-agent installed?
    • yes and yes
  • Please provide the full VM-config (qm config VMID) in code-tags of at least one misbehaving VM.
root@server9:~# qm config 122
agent: 1,fstrim_cloned_disks=1
balloon: 1024
boot: c
bootdisk: scsi0
cipassword: **********
ciuser: root
cores: 4
cpu: host
ide2: local:122/vm-122-cloudinit.qcow2,media=cdrom,size=4M
ipconfig0: ip=12.345.678.9/32,gw=12.34.56.789
memory: 4096
name: 8-openvpn
net0: virtio=02:00:00:2b:ed:1d,bridge=vmbr0
numa: 1
onboot: 1
ostype: l26
scsi0: local:122/vm-122-disk-0.raw,cache=writeback,size=25804M
scsihw: virtio-scsi-pci
serial0: socket
smbios1: uuid=97da9897-6862-47b1-8db0-df097761094f
sockets: 1
vmgenid: d9251d09-669f-4b23-a490-91e195ab09e8
  • Anything in the syslog of the PVE-host and/or the guests?
    Nothing of note

  • Does this happen with allVMs? Not a single one, that shuts down properly?
    • All VMs. Never do they Shutdown properly. But they'll Stop properly if Shutdown wasn't initiated first.
  • LXCs behave normal?
We don't use LXC

Thank you for your assistance in this matter. The node is in production and cannot really be rebooted except in critical circumstance.
 
Last edited:
I have resolved the issue by running the following commands on the host

systemctl daemon-reload and then systemctl start qmeventd.service
 

About

The Proxmox community has been around for many years and offers help and support for Proxmox VE, Proxmox Backup Server, and Proxmox Mail Gateway.
We think our community is one of the best thanks to people like you!

Get your subscription!

The Proxmox team works very hard to make sure you are running the best software and getting stable updates and security enhancements, as well as quick enterprise support. Tens of thousands of happy customers have a Proxmox subscription. Get yours easily in our online shop.

Buy now!