How Do You Cancel a vSphere Task

Canceling a vSphere task stops a running task from occurring. Canceling a scheduled task does not cancel subsequent runs. To cancel a scheduled task that has not run, reschedule it.

Prerequisites

Required privileges:

• Manual tasks: Tasks.Update task
• Scheduled tasks:Scheduled task.Remove task

Procedure

1. Locate the task in the Recent Tasks pane.
   By default, the Recent Tasks pane is displayed at the bottom of the vSphere Client.
2. Click the cancel button () next to the progress bar in the Status column for the task you want.
   If the cancel option is unavailable, the selected task cannot be canceled.
3. In the Cancel Task pop-up dialog box, click OK.

Results

The vCenter Server system or ESXi host stops the progress of the task and returns the object to its previous state. The vSphere Client displays the task with a The task was canceled by a user. status.

Cancelled tasks and the corresponding events are retained in the vCenter Server database. For information about the retention of tasks and events in the vCenter Server database, and how to configure the database settings, see the vSphere Monitoring and Performance documentation.