Creating new VMware View 5.1 linked clone pool fails with the error: “Provisioning View desktops fail with the error: “Error during provisioning: View Composer Fault: VC operation exceeded the task timeout limit of 0 mins set by View Composer” and “View Composer Fault: VC operation exceeded the task timeout limit set by View Composer (2030047)”

I’ve recently had to deploy a new VMware View 5.1 (build 928164) environment at a client who needed a remote desktop solution for a small office outside of Bermuda and as good as the deployment of the servers went, I noticed that the first linked clone pool I created with 20 desktops would fail with the following errors:

Error during provisioning: View Composer Fault: VC operation exceeded the task timeout limit of 0 mins set by View Composer

View Composer Fault: VC operation exceeded the task timeout limit set by View Composer (2030047)

Provisioning error occurred for Machine <desktopName: Cloning failed for Machine

A quick search on the internet lead me to the following KB:

Provisioning View desktops fail with the error: View Composer Fault: VC operation exceeded the task timeout limit set by View Composer (2030047)
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2030047

… where it explains that the reason why this error is thrown is because there is a default timeout value that View Composer waits before starting the configuration of the VDIs.  While the KB doesn’t explicitly mention the timeout value, from the timestamps I get with the replica cloning process, it looks like it’s 60 minutes:

As per the KB’s instructions, I went ahead and opened the directory C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware View Composer on the vCenter (where I installed View Composer) and looked for the SviWebService.exe.config file:

What I noticed was that if I attempt to open the file, I would receive a Access is denied. message:

So following the instructions of the KB, I went ahead and stopped the VMware View Composer service:

… then tried to open the file again:

… but I still got a access is denied message.  So from here, I went ahead and made a copy of the file in the same directory, renamed the original one that I couldn’t open to a different name, then renamed the copied version to the original name.  After completing the file copies and renames, I managed to open the file:

I then located the line:

<VirtualCenter PropertyCollectorTimeout="60" />

… and changed it to:

<VirtualCenter PropertyCollectorTimeout="60" VcTaskTimeout="120" />

Start the View Composer service again:

Note that I found a forum post I found had users indicating that the maximum amount available was 90 minutes but I couldn’t verify this because the cloning process on the SAN I was working with completed in 63 minutes after I changed this value.

In any case, as happy as I was to get through this issue, the other 3 View environments I manage for clients does not take an hour to clone a 40GB master template to create the replica so I went ahead to asked the client as to why their SAN is providing sub-optimal performance and the response I received was that I put on slower near line SAS disks which would go to explain the numbers I recorded while monitoring the cloning process when I was on the slow LUN:

• 5 mins for 1.5GB
• 23mins for 8GB
• 28min for 10GB
• 38 mins for 16GB
• 54 mins for 19GB

The client later moved me back to proper fibre channel drive which immediately improved the performance to

• 2 mins for 10GB
• 5 mins for 21GB

Definitely much better.