Creating a new desktop catalog in XenDesktop 5.5’s Desktop Studio throws the error: “A snapshot could not be created from the specified Virtual Machine” “The specified master VM is not a Snapshot”

Problem

You attempt to create a new desktop catalog in XenDesktop 5.5’s Desktop Studio but the desktop creation fails with the following error:

A snapshot could not be created from the specified Virtual Machine

The specified master VM is not a Snapshot

When browsing through the Tasks and Events in vCenter, you see the following error:

The operation is not allowed in the current state.

Solution

One of the reasons why you may receive this error is if the master image you’re using is stuck in a limbo state.  In the case of what caused my error, it was because I had initiated a shutdown via vCenter but the virtual machine was stuck in a shutting down state and therefore when Machine Create Services attempted to snapshot the virtual machine, it failed.  Here’s a screenshot of what the virtual machine’s summary tab looked like:

The console showed an error message indicating that a duplicate network name exists and that Windows was “shutting down”.

To rectify the problem, simply get it out of the limbo state.  I simply clicked on the OK button on the error message and let the shutdown process complete.  Once the virtual machine was off, MCS was then able to create the snapshot and continue with creating the pool.  Note that the virtual machine doesn’t need to be in a powered off state in order to be used to create a new desktop pool.