I have a Hyper-V that has reached the 50 checkpoint limit.

Question

I have a Hyper-V that has reached the 50 checkpoint limit.

Leslie Wells 0

As a result it is causing a backup job inside of Veeam Backup and Replication Server to fail. I cannot delete the checkpoints at all, not even from PowerShell.

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Answer 1

Hello,

When Hyper‑V checkpoints cannot be deleted, even with PowerShell, it usually means the AVHDX chain is corrupted or locked. The first step is to shut down the VM and try Remove-VMSnapshot -VMName <VMName> -IncludeAllChildSnapshots. If that fails, inspect the disk chain with Get-VHD to confirm the parent paths are intact. A broken chain will block merges and must be repaired manually.

If the chain is valid, you can merge the AVHDX files back into the base VHDX using Merge-VHD, starting from the newest checkpoint down to the base. Ensure the VM is powered off and no Hyper‑V worker process is holding locks; a host reboot often clears those. In clustered environments, check Failover Cluster Manager to confirm the VM isn’t locked by another node.

If merging still fails, exporting the VM and re‑importing it without checkpoints is the cleanest way to flatten the disk chain and restore Veeam backups. Avoid manually deleting AVHDX files, as that will break the VM permanently.

I hope you've found something useful here. If it helps you get more insight into the issue, it's appreciated to accept the answer. Should you have more questions, feel free to leave a message. Have a nice day!

HP.