My only one host gets into pause state automatically in failover cluster

Hi Mohammed,

Thank you for posting in the Microsoft Q&A community.

When you say the host goes into a Paused state, the first thing to confirm is whether you mean:

• The cluster node is shown as Paused in Failover Cluster Manager, or
• The virtual machines on that host are entering Paused / Paused-Critical state.

These two scenarios have different root causes and troubleshooting paths.

1. If the cluster node itself is Paused

A cluster node can be paused for maintenance or troubleshooting. When a node is paused, existing groups and resources may remain online, but new groups/resources cannot be brought online on that node. You can resume the node from Failover Cluster Manager, or by using PowerShell / command line. Please check the node state:

Get-ClusterNode | Format-Table Name, State

Then try to resume the affected node:

Resume-ClusterNode -Name "NodeName"

or:

cluster node NodeName /resume

If the node immediately returns to Paused state, the next step is to identify what is putting it back into that state.

Please review the System log and Microsoft-Windows-FailoverClustering/Operational log around the exact time when the node becomes paused. Cluster logs can also be collected with PowerShell:

Get-ClusterLog -UseLocalTime -TimeSpan 120 -Destination C:\ClusterLogs

2. If the VMs are Paused or Paused-Critical

If this is a Hyper-V cluster and the VMs are going into Paused-Critical, please check available disk space on the location that stores the VM files, especially if the VMs are on Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV). Microsoft documentation states that VMs can enter Critical - Paused when the drive storing VHD files or snapshots runs out of free space. It also states that when VMs are configured on CSV and the CSV disk runs out of free space, the VMs can enter a paused state, with Microsoft-Windows-Hyper-V-VMMS-Admin Event ID 16050 warning that the VM is about to run out of disk space.

Please check:

Get-ClusterSharedVolume

Get-VM | Select-Object Name, State, Path

Also check the Microsoft-Windows-Hyper-V-VMMS-Admin log for Event ID 16050 or similar messages about low disk space.

3. Check for CSV, storage, or network related events

If CSV is involved, review Failover Clustering events such as 5120 or 5142. Microsoft’s CSV troubleshooting guidance states that Event ID 5120 can occur with status codes such as STATUS_BAD_NETWORK_PATH, STATUS_CONNECTION_DISCONNECTED, or CSV auto-pause related status, and recommends checking System logs for network, HBA, or disk problems, as well as ensuring network/storage drivers and firmware are up to date.

You can check CSV status with:

Get-ClusterSharedVolume

Get-ClusterResource

Get-ClusterGroup

Please also check whether there are network heartbeat or node communication events such as Event ID 1135. In a similar cluster investigation, logs showed APIPA/link-local addressing and simultaneous connection loss to multiple nodes, which pointed to network-level instability such as NIC reset, driver/firmware issue, or switch/network fluctuation.

4. Suggested information to share for further troubleshooting

To narrow this down, please share the following:

1. Is the cluster node paused, or are the VMs paused/paused-critical?
2. Is this a Hyper-V failover cluster?
3. Are the VMs stored on Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV)?
4. What Windows Server version are the cluster nodes running?
5. What events appear around the issue time in:
   • System log
   • Microsoft-Windows-FailoverClustering/Operational
   • Microsoft-Windows-Hyper-V-VMMS-Admin
6. Do you see Event IDs such as 16050, 5120, 5142, 1069, or 1135?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Titus