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Troubleshooting Delayed or Timed-Out VM Shutdown from HyWorks on Nutanix VMs

This document covers details for the issue of delayed shutdown of Windows VMs with Nutanix as a connector and a possible workaround/ solution for it:

Issue: With Nutanix as the connector, VM shutdowns from HyWorks take too long, and the operation times out repeatedly before executing successfully.

Observations and Behavior

The following observations can be associated with this issue:

  • Operation Type: Graceful Shutdown.

  • Shutdown Initiated by: Admin using management console or by system, e.g., during recompose or while restoring.

  • Logs observed in HyWorks Controller:

    Shutdown operation on source Desktop 'PSNTW10GH-0008' is not completed in a timely manner; retrying shutdown operation on desktop.

  • Task initiated on Nutanix:

    • Task: Shutdown the VM using ACPI Entity: TestVM-V3-0003 Progress: 100% Status: succeeded Created on: <Creation date e.g., Jul 31, 2026, 04:34 PM> Duration: Under 1 second

  • Actual Status: VM is still running, and no shutdown was initiated inside the VM.

Possible Cause, Workaround or Solution

The issue is not because of HyWorks modules. HyWorks initiates the shutdown operation and sends it to Nutanix.

The Acropolis service (on Nutanix) sends ACPI shutdown/reboot commands to the user VM. It is up to the OS running on the guest VM to decide how to handle these commands. This may fail without any exceptions or errors.

Nutanix has listed the following possible reasons in their article: Power actions initiated from Prism or API may fail for Windows VMs

These are typical cases where Windows VMs do not handle ACPI commands.

  • If the screensaver is active in the VM, Windows will simply stop the screensaver when the ACPI command is received, without performing a full reboot or shutdown. A subsequent ACPI command will trigger a reboot or shutdown if it is sent before the screensaver is activated again.

  • If the power button configuration in Windows is not set to Shut Down, Windows may ignore Guest Shutdown ACPI commands. Refer to Power button action. in Microsoft documentation. Power service may be disabled on the Windows VM.

  • Such OS behavior may also affect VM handling when the AHV host enters maintenance mode. If we detect any non-migratable VMs (such as Agent VMs), Acropolis will attempt to shut them down by sending an ACPI command. If the OS does not respond to the ACPI shutdown command and is still running after 30 seconds, Acropolis hard powers off the VM.

Possible Solutions:

  • Disable Screensaver (if any): Go to Settings > Personalization > Lock screen, and select Screen saver settings. In the Screen Saver Settings window, set Screen saver to (None) and click OK to confirm the selection.

  • Turn off display to Never:

    • Open Control Panel > Power Options (or open Settings > System > Power & sleep, and select Additional power settings).

    • Click Change plan settings near the currently active power plan.

    • Set “Turn off the display” to “Never”. Click Save changes.

  • Set Power Button to Shutdown:

    • Open Control Panel > Power Options (or open Settings > System > Power & sleep, and select Additional power settings).

    • In the Power Options window, click Choose what the power button does on the left-side panel.

    • Power Options window showing the "Choose what the power button does" page.

    • In the System Settings window, set "When I press the power button" to "Shut down," then click Save changes.

    • System Settings window showing the "When I press the power button" option set to "Shut down".

  • Enable Power service: If the Power service is disabled, the following message may be displayed under Power Options. Power Options window showing the message above. Your power plan information isn't available. The RPC server is unavailable.

    • Open Services > Locate the service named Power. The Service status can be seen as Stopped:

    • Change the startup type to Automatic, then click OK and Apply to apply the settings.

    • Start the service by clicking the Start icon; the Service Status should then change to Running.

    • Power Properties window showing the "Service status" as Running.

    • Now you should see the desired options in the Power Options page on the Control Panel.

    • Power Options window showing the "Preferred plans" is set to "High performance".

  • More options:

    • If the above configurations do not resolve the shutdown issues, refer to the source article for more information. The above steps have been found to reduce the problem significantly in local testing labs.

Source Reference Article