Troubleshoot Amazon EC2 instance hibernation

Use this information to help diagnose and fix issues that you might encounter when hibernating an instance.

Can't hibernate immediately after launch

If you try to hibernate an instance too quickly after you've launched it, you get an error.

You must wait for about two minutes for Linux instances and about five minutes for Windows instances after launch before hibernating.

Takes too long to transition from stopping to stopped, and memory state not restored after start

If it takes a long time for your hibernating instance to transition from the stopping state to stopped, and if the memory state is not restored after you start, this could indicate that hibernation was not properly configured.

Linux instances

Check the instance system log and look for messages that are related to hibernation. To access the system log, connect to the instance or use the get-console-output command. Find the log lines from the hibinit-agent. If the log lines indicate a failure or the log lines are missing, there was most likely a failure configuring hibernation at launch.

For example, the following message indicates that the instance root volume is not large enough: hibinit-agent: Insufficient disk space. Cannot create setup for hibernation. Please allocate a larger root device.

If the last log line from the hibinit-agent is hibinit-agent: Running: swapoff /swap, hibernation was successfully configured.

If you do not see any logs from these processes, your AMI might not support hibernation. For information about supported AMIs, see Prerequisites for Amazon EC2 instance hibernation. If you used your own Linux AMI, make sure that you followed the instructions for Configure a Linux AMI to support hibernation.

Windows Server 2016 and later

Check the EC2 launch log and look for messages that are related to hibernation. To access the EC2 launch log, connect to the instance and open the C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Log\Ec2Launch.log file in a text editor. If you're using EC2Launch v2, open C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2Launch\log\agent.log.

Find the log lines for hibernation. If the log lines indicate a failure or the log lines are missing, there was most likely a failure configuring hibernation at launch.

For example, the following message indicates that hibernation failed to configure: Message: Failed to enable hibernation. If the error message includes decimal ASCII values, you can convert the ASCII values to plain text in order to read the full error message.

If the log line contains HibernationEnabled: true, hibernation was successfully configured.

Windows Server 2012 R2 and earlier

Check the EC2 config log and look for messages that are related to hibernation. To access the EC2 config log, connect to the instance and open the C:\Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService\Logs\Ec2ConfigLog.txt file in a text editor. Find the log lines for SetHibernateOnSleep. If the log lines indicate a failure or the log lines are missing, there was most likely a failure configuring hibernation at launch.

For example, the following message indicates that the instance root volume is not large enough: SetHibernateOnSleep: Failed to enable hibernation: Hibernation failed with the following error: There is not enough space on the disk.

If the log line is SetHibernateOnSleep: HibernationEnabled: true, hibernation was successfully configured.

Windows instance size

If you’re using a T3 or T3a Windows instance with less than 1 GB of RAM, try increasing the size of the instance to one that has at least 1 GB of RAM.

Instance "stuck" in the stopping state

If you hibernated your instance and it appears "stuck" in the stopping state, you can forcibly stop it. For more information, see Troubleshoot Amazon EC2 instance stop issues.

Can’t start Spot Instance immediately after hibernate

If you try to start a Spot Instance within two minutes of hibernating it, you might get the following error:

You failed to start the Spot Instance because the associated Spot Instance request is not in an appropriate state to support start.

Wait for about two minutes for Linux instances and about five minutes for Windows instances and then retry starting the instance.

Resume Spot Instances failed

If your Spot Instance was hibernated successfully but failed to resume, and instead rebooted (a fresh restart where the hibernated state is not retained), it might be because the user data contained the following script:

/usr/bin/enable-ec2-spot-hibernation

Remove this script from the User data field in the launch template, and then request a new Spot Instance.

Note that even if the instance failed to resume, without the hibernated state preserved, the instance can still be started in the same way as starting from the stopped state.