VM Cloning Fails For Self-Service Users

Problem

• VM clone operation gets stuck at the VM snapshot initiated phase and never progresses to subsequent phases.

• The instance eventually goes into ERROR with scheduler retries exceeded. Relevant error line seen in logs:

ERROR nova.scheduler.utils ... Exceeded max scheduling attempts 3 ... Failed to call glance method data

Environment

• Private Cloud Director Virtualization - v2025.10 till v2026.1-260

• Self-Hosted Private Cloud Director Virtualization - v2025.10 till v2026.1-260

• Component: Compute Service

• Self-Service Users

Cause

• The cloning attempts are carried out by a self-service user, which is where the cloning workflow encounters issues. Sometimes, volume cloning deletes the snapshot before the virtual machine finishes downloading the image.

• Based on the behaviour, the self-service user does not appear to have the required privileges to complete the full snapshot/image lifecycle used in the cloning flow (snapshot creation + image access during boot + snapshot cleanup).

Resolution

• Bug PCD-5572 has been reported, and the fix is available from v2026.1-309.

Workaround

1. Assign admin-level privileges for cloning. To use the cloning feature reliably, the self-service user will need admin-level privileges.

2. If admin privileges cannot be provided to the self-service user, a workable alternative is:

   1. Take a volume snapshot of the source VM’s boot volume

   2. Create a new VM from that volume snapshot