Cloning VM’s with multiple disks fail

So I’ve had the problem in the past where I need to remove very old snapshots for ESX virtual machines and eventually after hours of merging it fails with no apparent reason.  Recently I was looking into how I could get aroudn this.  The idea I was testing was to use Converter Enterprise to esentially do a V2V.  That way, if the conversion failed I will still have the original machine in its old working state.

After starting this process on a test VM, after 3 hours of converting it failed.  The logs gave me the following:

UNKNOWN_METHOD_FAULT(vim.fault.NotAuthenticated)

I stumbled upon a post on the vmware communities that suggested I try the following

When setting up the conversion, don’t use “convert all disks and leave current size”, use “select volumes…” and leave all volumes selected and the default options checked.

I gave it another try and voila! Conversion worked without error.

I wonder if multiple disks has anything to do with the snapshot merging problems I’ve had so many times.  As I attempt to remember specifics of all past failed attempts, I believe they’ve all had multiple disks.  Maybe that was the problem all along?  As long as this Plan B works I’m happy!