I just recently tried to delete a snapshot of a VM via the VM snapshot manager. The VM was 80GB in size with a snapshot of 50GB existing, I gracefully shutdown the OS/VM prior to removing the snapshot. Once I started the removal, all was well until we got to 95% (the 95/99% issue we all know). After doing some research, I finally decided to cancel the process and restart the management services via the host. This resolved the issue and the snapshot appeared to be removed.
A couple days later I was working on another task and ended up experiencing the "An internal error occurred...Details: Object reference not set..." error, this took quite some time to fix but eventually was resolved. This showed me that the snapshot I thought removed previously, did not actually get removed; i have now lost trust in the VMware snapshot manager!
As I am going to have to go through the process of removing snapshots from numerous VM's, over the next couple of weeks.
I want to avoid having to experience this type of related issue again, I want to ensure that the VM snapshot is completed removed and as quick as possible.
Is there any preferred way of going through the snapshot removal process? Maybe via the CLI or a VMware or Third-Party utility/tool?
Is there a "verification" process that can be taken to ensure that the snapshot was actually removed? It appears that I cannot trust the GUI/vSphere Client when it comes to verifying the snapshot removal.