Empty Veeam Explorer for MS SQL Server

[dimitar.stoyanov]

Hi guys,

I have a question related to SQL restoration process.

The environment is v8. Enterprise Plus edition.
All of the SQL servers are in Simple mode, with AD authentication, and the user that I am using for the backup process is domain admin and the access to the databases is all right.

I have a different backup jobs with different SQL servers in them.
All of the jobs are with AAP enabled and VMtools quiescence.
There are no errors through the process. All finishing successfully green

For some of the servers, everything is fine. But for some of them, when I try to restore SQL DB using “Restore application item” the console is open, but there is no DB in it – it is empty. And for some of the servers I have several dbs. For example 3 dbs and 2 of them are showing and 1 is missing.
If I try to mount the DB manually, using Restore guest files, and after that SQL explorer > add the DB - it works (except the newer than MS SQL Server 2012 Express Edition databases - I know for the staging limitation).


So what can be the reason for this behavior?
It is no version problem (I think so), because I have a SQL2008R2 DB which is ok, and 1 which is not.
It sounds like a permission issue, but the user is domain admin with access to the databases...


Any idea is welcome!

Thank you

Best Regards,
Dimitar

[foggy]

Dimitar, I would advise to open a case with our technical support, as only logs are able to tell on which stage the DB was "lost": during the backup or on opening VESQL. Basically, VESQL shows all the DBs it gets information about from the backup, excluding system DBs. Btw, are there any DB exclusions specified on the Veeam B&R server (the corresponding GUI option is available after specifying the EnableDBExclusions registry key)? Starting v7, vCenter database is excluded automatically.

[Vitaliy S.]

All of the jobs are with AAP enabled and VMtools quiescence.

Why do you have two option enabled for these jobs? Do you possibly see the failover from AAIP to VMtools quiescence in the corresponding job sessions?

[mcwill]

We hit this, it was caused by the Domain Admin account not having the "sysadmin" permission on the SQL Server. It doesn't stop the backup from being made but it does stop the acquisition of data required by SQL Explorer from what we can see.

[foggy]

Thanks for letting us know. Insufficient permissions could, indeed, be the reason of failure to collect the required info during backup.

[dimitar.stoyanov]

Hi guys,

Sorry for the delayed reply.

Thank you all for your comments.

mcwill, the information that you share was very helpful. In addition, I would say that “Domain admin” user group was added to SQL “sysadmin” role but it did not work. You have to add the specific User directly to that role.
Now everything is working.

Vitaliy, as you mention, I configured these two options, because I want to have a failover scenario. If AAIP fail for some reason, the job will start using VMtools quiescence. Isn’t this configuration best practice?

Thank you

Regards,
Dimitar

[foggy]

Yes, this is a recommended approach. What Vitaliy was meaning is that information about the database was not collected due to possible VSS failure (and subsequent failover to VMware Tools quiescence, which could be observed in the job session log).

[nholman]

Can anyone advise around using SQL explorer restoring?

We are backing an availability group. When i go the backup, right click and restore application SQL i select the restore point and then SQL explorer opens. Awesome. great so far.

but nothing is there? add database...where do i select the database? i can mount VeeamFLR and and do it that way but the options i get for restore seem limited? compared to the screenshots i see around SQl explorer which has gold database icons mine are grey with no restore in time options if i attach this way.

im obvisouley doing something wrong. any help please!?
im running al this from the veeam backup server.

[foggy]

Nick, unless some of the hints mentioned above helps, please open a case with technical support.

[nholman]

permissions seems to have done! good old sysadmin on the DB servers.

[tienlamnguyen]

I had similar problem and I don't know of you solved it. But you have 2 options solving this.

1- either disable UAC on the VM
2- Use the BUILTIN domain administrator account for backup.

I end up using options 2 - and my backup explorer was able to see the datas