Volume efficiency operations do not complete and show the error "Metafile does not exist"

Applies to

• Data ONTAP versions 8.3.2 and later.
• ONTAP 9

Issue

• Volume efficiency (deduplication) operations fail and give the error Metafile does not exist. This can be seen in the following output:

Example:
cluster01::> volume efficiency show -vserver svm1 -volume vol1
 
                 Vserver Name: svm1
                      Volume Name: vol1
                      Volume Path: /vol/vol1
                            State: Enabled
                           Status: Idle
 Progress: Idle for 01:20:04
                             Type: Snapvault
                         Schedule: -
           Efficiency Policy Name: -
           Blocks Skipped Sharing: 0
             Last Operation State: Failure
     Last Success Operation Begin: Fri Jul 07 07:32:24 2017
       Last Success Operation End: Fri Jul 07 08:28:05 2017
             Last Operation Begin: Wed Aug 16 11:22:59 2017
               Last Operation End: Wed Aug 16 11:22:59 2017
              Last Operation Size: 0B
             Last Operation Error: Metafile does not exist

• This is most often seen in SnapVault volumes, but can be encountered on any volume with deduplication enabled.