VSS Issue?

[SSR]

Support Case ID = 01017727

Hi folks,

I have a backup issue with Veeam.

Veeam was installed over the Summer hols (we're a school), as part of a Hyper-V host replacement, switching from DPM.

At the start of the week I tried to restore from the D drive of one of the file servers and the drive wasn't listed in the explorer, even though it was clearly part of the backup based on the size. I contacted Veeam support and they said it was because all Windows servers should have application-aware enabled for their respective backup jobs. So I enabled this, and this caused further problems, with jobs failing for six servers.

Three of these were resolved (Domain Controllers) because it was due to a lack of SCSI adapter on the VM. Oddly the problem file server is now fine. The two problem servers left are another file server (2008 R2) and a SQL server (2012 R2).

Veeam have sent the following troubleshooting link which I have worked through http://www.veeam.com/kb1855

The diskshadow command at the end of the document highlights that the VSS writer for the SIMS server is offline, although not for the file server.

Veeam support have suggested restarting the VMM process on the hosts, and restarting the Shadow Copy service on the servers, but neither of these have resolved it. I have in fact rebooted the hosts, and applied Windows updates. They've also said to reinstall integration tools, but I cannot find a way to do this.

Veeam currently shows the following pertinent errors in the backup log:

For file server...

Code: Select all

11/09/2015 19:26:54 :: Unable to create snapshot (Microsoft CSV Shadow Copy
Provider) (mode: Veeam application-aware processing). Details: Writer 'Microsoft Hyper-V VSS Writer' is failed at 'VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_PREPARE_SNAPSHOT'.
The writer experienced a non-transient error. If the backup process is retried, the error is likely to reoccur.
--tr:Failed to verify writers state.
--tr:Failed to perform pre-backup tasks.
11/09/2015 19:28:57 :: Make sure VM does not have 'iSCSI Software Target Storage Provider' feature installed.
11/09/2015 19:29:01 :: Retrying snapshot creation attempt (Writer 'Microsoft Hyper-V VSS Writer' is failed at 'VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_PREPARE_SNAPSHOT'.
The writer experienced a non-transient error. If the backup process is retried, the error is likely to reoccur.
--tr:Failed to verify writers state.
--tr:Failed to perform pre-backup tasks.)

For SQL server...

Code: Select all

11/09/2015 21:36:09 :: Unable to create snapshot (Microsoft CSV Shadow Copy
Provider) (mode: Crash consistent). Details: Failed to prepare guests for volume snapshot.

For the file server there are various VSS related errors in event viewer, but too many to post here.

I'm at a bit of a loss as to what else I can try, and meanwhile we're not getting any backups of these two critical servers.

Any ideas?

[Shestakov]

Hi!

I'm at a bit of a loss as to what else I can try, and meanwhile we're not getting any backups of these two critical servers.

First of all, while we are trying to figure out the problem, I would make a backup of the critical servers without transaction consistency.

As for VSS, could you specify which drivers was offline and if the troubleshooting helped?
You can also check state of writers running vssadmin list writers command. Thanks!

[SSR]

Good point. I've disabled Application-Aware for now.

I'm not sure it was a driver so much for our SQL server as just the VSS writer. This is the relevant portion from the log:

Code: Select all

+ Component "Microsoft Hyper-V VSS Writer:\E784B62C-7107-4F7D-A6DD-8FBF8503A95B"
- Name: E784B62C-7107-4F7D-A6DD-8FBF8503A95B
- Logical path: 
- Full path: \E784B62C-7107-4F7D-A6DD-8FBF8503A95B
- Caption: Offline\VA-ADMIN-SIMS2012R2
- Type: VSS_CT_FILEGROUP [2]
- Is selectable: TRUE
- Is top level: TRUE
- Notify on backup complete: FALSE
- Paths affected by this component:
- C:\ClusterStorage\R10-CSV1\VA-ADMIN-SIMS2012R2
- C:\ClusterStorage\R10-CSV1\VA-ADMIN-SIMS2012R2\
- C:\ClusterStorage\R10-CSV1\VA-ADMIN-SIMS2012R2\Snapshots
- C:\ClusterStorage\R10-CSV1\VA-ADMIN-SIMS2012R2\Snapshots\C11B3682-C22E-4C9B-884C-78B1AA23064F
- C:\ClusterStorage\R10-CSV1\VA-ADMIN-SIMS2012R2\Virtual Machines\
- Volumes affected by this component:
                               - \\?\Volume{f4308482-7b7f-44e7-bf58-7010302eb3d7}\ [C:\ClusterStorage\R10-CSV1\]
- Component Dependencies:

VSSADMIN LIST WRITERS shows everything as stable and without error.