topic Re: Unable to delete busy snapshot in ONTAP Discussions

Unable to delete busy snapshot

netapple — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 10:43:58 GMT

Hello all,

I have problems removing an old snapshot which shows status "busy". This is a snapshot on a backup machine. The snapmirror relationship and the source volume do not exist anymore. I try to delete the snapshot using privilige mode "diag" and option "-ignore-owners true" but it still comes up with "... has not expired or is locked. Use the "snapshot show -fields
owners, expiry-time" command to view the expiry and lock status of the Snapshot copy." This command gives owner "snapmirror" and no expiry-time set. I read somewhere to re-create the snapmirror relationship but as the source volume does not exist anymore that is not possible. Is there a solution to this? Any hints are appreciated.

Thanks

Daniel

Re: Unable to delete busy snapshot

pedro_rocha — Fri, 27 Nov 2020 13:40:22 GMT

Hi,

This KB seems to refer to your issue: https://kb.netapp.com/Advice_and_Troubleshooting/Data_Storage_Software/ONTAP_OS/Unable_to_delete_busy_snapshots_-_Snapshot_copy_has_not_expired_or_is_locked

Problem is that the resolution on it is "call NetApp".

It says it could be because of clones, but I guess this is not your case.

Regards,

Pedro

Re: Unable to delete busy snapshot

netapple — Mon, 30 Nov 2020 07:05:43 GMT

Thanks Pedro. I will check this out.

Re: Unable to delete busy snapshot

netapple — Mon, 30 Nov 2020 13:24:05 GMT

Not the answer I like but obviously there is no other way. Thanks.

Re: Unable to delete busy snapshot

pedro_rocha — Mon, 30 Nov 2020 19:35:25 GMT

Sorry for that, and hope support can help you out.

Please post here if you manage to solve it.

Regards,

Pedro