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Troubleshooting Decision Tree¶

Use this page to route an observed VM symptom to the most relevant first-response checklist and canonical playbook.

Symptom routing¶

graph TD
    A[Symptom observed] --> B{Primary failure}
    B -->|Cannot RDP or SSH| C[Connectivity path]
    B -->|DNS or east-west reachability| D[Network and DNS path]
    B -->|VM agent or extension action failed| E[Agent path]
    B -->|Slow response or sustained saturation| F[Performance path]
    B -->|Disk latency or throttling| G[Disk path]
    B -->|VM won't start or boot screen error| H[Boot path]
    B -->|Backup job failed| I[Recovery path]

    C --> C1[first-10-minutes/connectivity]
    C1 --> C2[playbooks/connectivity/cannot-rdp-or-ssh]

    D --> D1[first-10-minutes/connectivity]
    D1 --> D2[playbooks/connectivity/dns-and-connectivity-issues]

    E --> E1[first-10-minutes/connectivity]
    E1 --> E2[playbooks/connectivity/extension-failures]

    F --> F1[first-10-minutes/performance]
    F1 --> F2[playbooks/performance/slow-performance]
    F1 --> F3[playbooks/performance/high-cpu-memory-disk]

    G --> G1[first-10-minutes/performance]
    G1 --> G2[playbooks/performance/disk-performance-issues]

    H --> H1[first-10-minutes/boot]
    H1 --> H2[playbooks/boot-disk/vm-wont-start]
    H1 --> H3[playbooks/boot-disk/boot-diagnostics-and-serial-console]

    I --> I1[first-10-minutes/boot]
    I1 --> I2[playbooks/boot-disk/backup-failures]

Decision rules¶

If you see	Start here	Then open
timeout, refused, credential, or admin access failure	Connectivity checklist	Cannot RDP or SSH
name resolution failure, peering issue, or route mismatch	Connectivity checklist	DNS and Connectivity Issues
provisioning failed on extension or VM agent action	Connectivity checklist	Extension Failures
app or VM is slow, but root cause unclear	Performance checklist	Slow Performance
one resource is clearly saturated	Performance checklist	High CPU / Memory / Disk
storage latency or throttling dominates	Performance checklist	Disk Performance Issues
VM never reaches healthy boot state	Boot checklist	VM Won't Start
you need screen or console evidence before networking works	Boot checklist	Boot Diagnostics and Serial Console
backup job or snapshot workflow failed	Boot checklist	Backup Failures

See Also¶

Sources¶