Plenty of sav files in Snapshots without any snapshot

[bobJ]

On Windows 10 host (Ubuntu guest) I have had a plenty of snapshots over period of time I have used VirtualBox 6.1 and now VirtualBox 7.0.2. I created snapshots and deleted them, then creating new ones etc. But today I have deleted all of the snapshots.

Now looking into Snapshots folder and I expect no files are in this folder anymore, but to my surprise there are plenty of files all with SAV file extension (the problem I am reporting).

Command "dir" output on Windows host: 19/05/2022 22:08 712.041.461 2022-05-19T21-07-57-214718900Z.sav 31/05/2022 17:56 782.450.690 2022-05-31T16-56-50-903121400Z.sav 07/06/2022 21:46 665.091.925 2022-06-07T20-46-36-299478900Z.sav 22/06/2022 21:55 702.938.444 2022-06-22T20-55-17-961063100Z.sav 14/07/2022 21:12 843.395.181 2022-07-14T20-12-47-010062000Z.sav 06/08/2022 16:09 707.927.057 2022-08-06T15-09-23-494845800Z.sav 30/08/2022 18:16 836.501.505 2022-08-30T17-16-26-777190700Z.sav 02/10/2022 17:44 717.281.998 2022-10-02T16-44-24-007573200Z.sav 07/10/2022 18:45 757.231.318 2022-10-07T17-45-24-466885500Z.sav

From file's date (May, Jun, July and August) I assume this files are from VirtualBox 6.1.x times. From file extension it looks those files are some saved snapshot's states. Why does they still exists? I assume there is/was some bug that does/did not delete saved state when snapshots gets deleted.

I shut down the virtual machine and move those files away from virtual machine Snapshot directory to some directory outside of VirtualBox and I started virtual machine and it starts up successfully and virtual machine works just normally.

I assume those files are not needed anymore, are they? Can I permanently delete them without any harm?

[boxer01]

Those files are not the snapshot files, but the save state files. Vbox just crashed during the restore phase and lost them forever.

IMHO, you can delete them. Because you simply can't use them anymore. And there is no use for them anyway.

[bobJ]

I don't remember to have any crashes at restore phase. I don't remember having any crash at all.

[fth0]

FWIW, there seem to be also other situations where a .sav file doesn't get removed for unknown reasons.

If your VM doesn't have any snapshots and currently isn't in a saved state, IMO you can safely delete them.

[bobJ]

As I have written in my original problem report I don't have any snapshots and saved states. I have already moved all of the "sav" files out of virtual machine Snapshots folder and virtual machine works just fine.

If this is known problem, then I suggest this problem report be closed down.

[boxer01]

See this #21768 and this #21833. Or just close this ticket.