SureBackup VMware Tools issue Case #04886452

[robcawood]

HI All

I have about 10 Surebackup jobs of which about 50% succeed on a regular basis, the other 50% seem to have an issue with VMware Tools.

When running the jobs manually I noticed initially that the VMWARE folder in Program Files was totally missing, so hence no VMware Tools and no Heartbeat so job fails. So on advice from Support I re-installed VMWare Tools.

Now when running the job the VMWARE folder is in Program Files, however there is no VMWare Tools service in Services.msc. So I manually ran the vmtoolsd.exe and the job then detected the Heartbeat and continued.

Has anyone had this issue?

My question is... why does Veeam mess with the files/folders etc. when running the SureBackup job? I explored the backup file (doing a guest file level restore) and the VMWARE folder was in the backup image. So again, why does the SureBackup job decide to remove it?

Does anyone else spend more time troubleshooting SureBackup jobs than they would like only to find when you run the job manually it actually works and the server boots, however your reports just show a bunch of failures?

Any help would be appreciated.

Rob

[PetrM]

Hi Rob,

How did you come to the conclusion that Veeam removes some folders during SureBackup? The state of VM in Data Lab is identical to the one in backup, I assume you'd encounter the same issue by restoring a VM to a different location. Anyway, I agree that this pattern might be a good hint for troubleshooting but let's wait for the result of debug logs analysis from our support team, I'm sure that our engineers will be able to narrow down the issue soon.

Thanks!

[robcawood]

Hi

I came to that conclusion by...

Logging into the VM recovered by SureBackup and browsing to the Program Files folder... there was no VMWARE folder.

I then stopped the SureBackup Job and started a Guest File Restore job on the same Recovery point and browsed to the Program Files folder... there was a VMWARE folder.

Then after removing and re-installing VMware Tools I ran another SureBackup Job... this time the VMWARE folder was in Program Files folder, but there is no VMware Tools Service in services.

Hopefully this is a better explanation than my original post.

Rob

[Andreas Neufert]

I think here SureBackup is doing it´s job reporting to you issues that you have in your environment. It was exactly designed that way.
SureBackup do not alter folder structure or similar.
It will boot the VM from the image backup.

I would check the Backup Job configuration if there is any file/folder exclusions defined. This would be the only way that we would not backup specific files. But even then the files would be present, just with the data zeroed.

Again, I think SureBackup is doing it´s job and report that you would have issues when you would restore VMs.

[PetrM]

This one seems to be unexpected:

started a Guest File Restore job on the same Recovery point and browsed to the Program Files folder... there was a VMWARE folder.

@robcawood Please continue to work with our support engineers.

Thanks!

[robcawood]

I logged the ticket 4 days ago and have had 2 comments from support
1. Reinstall VMware Tools - Done
2. Upload new log files - Done

NO other support in 4 days.

[PetrM]

You may request an escalation of the support case if you think that the investigation moves into the wrong direction. On the other hand, the issue seem to be quite sophisticated and four days is most likely not enough to determine the root cause.

Thanks!

[mfc]

Do you have the "Check and upgrade VMware Tools before each power on" option set on the VMs in vSphere? If so vSphere will try to remove and install latest VMware Tools on these SureBackup VMs as they're booting up if they are not running the latest.