Bug 1374110

Summary:	View / Snapshot button greyed out on specific VM
Product:	[Community] Virtualization Tools	Reporter:	Louis van Dyk <louis>
Component:	virt-manager	Assignee:	Cole Robinson <crobinso>
Status:	CLOSED WORKSFORME	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	low	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	unspecified	CC:	berrange, crobinso, gscrivan, virt-maint
Target Milestone:	---	Keywords:	Improvement
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	x86_64
OS:	Linux
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Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	If docs needed, set a value
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Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2020-01-26 21:20:08 UTC	Type:	Bug
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:

Description Louis van Dyk 2016-09-08 01:13:14 UTC

Description of problem:
I had created a new VM using the virt-manager interface and wanted to take a snapshot. However, the Snapshot radio button on the View menu was greyed out and I had no idea why.

After finally attempting it from CLI using "virsh snapshot-create-as XYZ" I got the error message:
error: unsupported configuration: internal snapshot for disk fda unsupported for storage type raw

Since the Floppy Disk (which I used to install the virtio disk drivers when the guest OS needed to get into safe mode) can only be "raw", I Disconnected / Unmounted the Floppy vfd image from the device, and the Snapshot button came back to life!

It would really be useful if virt-manager could give a REASON why the Snapshot button is greyed out. It took me a lot of Googling (with no results), reading RedHat documentation (for that one thing I must not have configured), and so on.

Perhaps when hovering over the greyed out Snapshot radio button, that message could be displayed? Obviously virt-manager was aware that the presence of the "Connected" Floppy Device was an issue to it working.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
virt-manager-1.4.0-3.fc24.noarch

How reproducible:
Always.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. On any guest, add hardware: Storage / Select Custom / Device Type Floppy device
2. Connect the Floppy device to a vfd image, e.g. /usr/share/virtio-win/virtio-win_amd64.vfd
3. Select View Menu, and notice that Snapshot is now greyed out.
4. ** Nothing indicates why the Snapshow button is greyed out. **
5. Disconnect the Floppy device from the image.
6. Select View Menu, and the Snapshot button is selectable again.

Actual results:
As above.

Expected results:
An explanation of why Snapshot has been deactivated, similar to that given by virsh when trying to create a snapshot from CLI, would be very useful.

Additional info:

Comment 1 Cole Robinson 2016-09-08 21:03:57 UTC

Thanks for the report, but the disabled snapshot button should present a tooltip describing why it's disabled, so hover over for a second to see the hint. I'm open to alternate suggestions though

Comment 2 Louis van Dyk 2016-09-09 05:47:08 UTC

Ahhh.  So they are there!

In my case, I don't see them because I have deselected the toolbar to gain a bit of screen real estate.  These 1366x768 screens are really awful!

So to get to the Snapshots, I click on the actual View Menu and try to select that Snapshot button there, which is greyed out.  Perhaps the same message you show on the toolbar could be shown when hovering over the radio button too?

While I have your attention: why would I get the error below?
error: unsupported configuration: internal snapshots and checkpoints require all disks to be selected for snapshot
I unmounted the floppy image and cd image, with only one Virtio HDD.  The VM was online.  (I haven't been able to install the qemu-guest-agent software yet as it keeps hanging mid-install.)

Comment 3 Louis van Dyk 2016-09-13 11:54:17 UTC

Hi Cole.  Could I make an interface suggestion for virt-manager?

At the moment, the menu and toolbar both run along the top.  My monitor has a 1366x768 or 1600x900 or 1920x1080 resolution - all have the typical 1.77:1 ratio.

When launch my VM, it typically would also like that ratio as it is the de facto standard.  However, I have to scale it down or choose a lower resolution. But, because of the menu and toolbar, I have a lot of wasted "black bar" space on the left and right.

My suggestion: could you move the toolbar to the left or right side, and leave the menu on the top.  This makes a sort of frame around the work screen, and in that way, one can keep the 1.77:1 ratio guest in the frame.  I guess, having the toolbar auto-hide is also an option.

Comment 4 Cole Robinson 2020-01-26 21:20:08 UTC

I think the tooltip covers this, explaining why snapshots weren't an option.