Impossible installation on VMware 6.5 Windows guest (ticket #05586260)

[opsystem]

Hello folks,

I’m trying to setup B&R CE 11.0.1.1261 on a Windows 10 Pro guest VM (VMware ESXi 6.5.0 U2 - build 9298722). VM has 2 CPU on Xeon E5-2650 and 16 GB allocated RAM.
Installation seems to work until the SQL Express setup phase that stops with error:

Event #17310 MSSQL$VEEAMSQL2016
A user request from the session with SPID 51 generated a fatal exception. SQL Server is terminating this session. Contact Product Support Services with the dump produced in the log directory.

What I’ve done so far:
- Deleted+rebuilt the entire VM w/ Windows 10 (both IT-it and EN-US, no AV or other software, official MS image creation tool)
- Deleted+rebuilt the entire VM w/ Windows 11 (IT-it, no AV or other software, official MS image creation tool)
- Changed SCSI controller emulation (LSI logic, paravirtual)
- Manually installed and configured MS SQL Express 2019 instance
- Performed Windows memory self-test, chkdsk, sfc, ect. with no errors found
- Searched on SQL forums for SPID 51 error, found no solutions AFAIK

I suppose it could be some bug/incompatibility with this specific version of ESXi, unfortunately upgrading is not an option for now.
Help me please

[Mildur]

Hi Gabriele

Welcome to the forum and thanks for the case number.
Support for users of our free products is on best effort, as explained by the support engineer.

I'm not aware of any limitation with Windows 10 and installing our SQL Express. And I don't believe that the ESXI Server is the issue.

- Manually installed and configured MS SQL Express 2019 instance

Installation has worked, but then when you install Veeam again, the issue happens again?

Any chance, you can test with a real server OS? We don't recommend to use windows client OS for the Veeam backup server, even if it's supported.

Thanks
Fabian

[opsystem]

Hello Fabian,

thanks for taking time to review my post.

We don't recommend to use windows client OS for the Veeam backup server

Please, could you point me out to some KB explicating why this is not recommended and what kind of issues can arise when using client OS?

As per your question, no, installation doesn’t terminate: SQL error rises at the end (during fist SQL tables configuration) and setup does not complete.
Yes I could try to put new 2019 Server in place, but it would require some time… We have about 30 installations on Windows 10 and all them are working.. is there anything else I can do (as log debug, etc.) before going ahead and wipe the VM?

Thanks again
Gabriele

[Mildur]

Please, could you point me out to some KB explicating why this is not recommended and what kind of issues can arise when using client OS?

I don't have a KB article for that recommendation.

For me, this two key points should be considered if you want to use Windows 10 as a backup server:
- Microsoft doesn't allow running server applications on windows clients. You could violate Windows EULA. I'm no expert in their EULA. So best to ask someone from Microsoft directly.
- Windows 10 Pro doesn't give you the capability to use FastClone (fast spaceless synthentic Fulls with reFS].

And I believe, Data Deduplication is a feature only for windows servers. If you use that feature on a VM which you do backups, you also need a windows server mount server to the restore data from a volume with deduplication enabled.
If you don't want to use FastClone on a windows repository server or you don't have machines with data deduplication enabled, then windows client is good enough from a technical side. There is also a Windows 10 Pro for workstation license, which would work with Fast-Clone.

We have about 30 installations on Windows 10 and all them are working.. is there anything else I can do (as log debug, etc.) before going ahead and wipe the VM?

We log the installation of VBR to this location: C:\ProgramData\Veeam\Setup\Temp
If the installer has issues to deploy the database, then probably technical support is required.
May I ask, is this installation for your company or for a client of yours?

[opsystem]

Hello Mildur and sorry for my delayed answer.

Thanks for clarifying those aspects of using a Windows client instead of server, I’ll take them into account.

The installation is for one of our clients.

Speaking of SQL problem, I went ahead with the affected server:
- Upgraded ESXi to latest supported 6.5 U3.
- Installed Veeam Agent on another existing Windows Server 2012, same host.

The exact same problem raised on the server VM in multiple circumstances (immediately after installation, and after BD reset + some backups completed successfully):
Error: Internal Query Processor Error: The query processor could not produce a query plan. For more information, contact Customer Support Services.
Error: Cannot continue the execution because the session is in the kill state.

In conclusion I can exclude Windows version or Windows type as root cause, as well as other applications or VMware version.

There must be some sort of incompatibility with this specific hardware layer / hardware virtualization or network environment, or backup repository.
Unfortunately, we ran out of time for testing and debugging and decided to use another product for backup. The solution from another vendor has been up and running with no issues until now (doesn’t use SQL).

Gabriele

[Mildur]

Hi Gabriele

Thanks for the update. Sorry to hear that you decided for another backup product. Veeam V12 would allow you to use postgreSQL instead of MSSQL. The default database will be postgreSQL, but both can be choosen in the wizard.

Just in case you didn‘t knew:
All veeam products for clients/customers managed by a service provider must be licensed. It’s forbidden by our EULA to use free or community editions to provide services (implementation, management, maintaining, solving issues) for third parties.

You can register yourself for the Veeam Cloud & Service Provider (VCSP) program and use rental licensing to provide backup as a service to the customer. Or the customer can buy a VUL by himself, which will allow yourself to support the customer in his backup environment.

https://www.veeam.com/eula.html (Chapter 4)

With the correct license, our support will look into every case.
Please contact your veeam sales representatives if you have more questions about the licensing of customers environment.


Thanks
Fabian

[wesser]

Event #17310 MSSQL$VEEAMSQL2016
A user request from the session with SPID 51 generated a fatal exception. SQL Server is terminating this session. Contact Product Support Services with the dump produced in the log directory.

This is an issue by the sqlserver network agent. Read the EULA and use case for the express server. I remember, that ms has limited the the number of used sql-express instances on the net.
At install time, the installer looks into the network to find out any other sql-server instances and version of them, to prevent name dups.

[opsystem]

Hello,

All veeam products for clients/customers managed by a service provider must be licensed. It’s forbidden by our EULA to use free or community editions to provide services (implementation, management, maintaining, solving issues) for third parties.

Actually all our clients have licensed versions, I’m not in charge of this but I believe this was a temporary situation before commercial agreement with this specific customer. Anyway, thanks for clarifying and for the PostgreSQL suggestion, this could be a valid alternative if we see same problem again.

This is an issue by the sqlserver network agent. Read the EULA and use case for the express server. I remember, that ms has limited the the number of used sql-express instances on the net.
At install time, the installer looks into the network to find out any other sql-server instances and version of them, to prevent name dups.

This could be it. I didn’t scan the network for other instances, but I know there are other SQL Express installations around so yes, there must be some sort of conflicting service.
Even if we ended up with another solution, this thread has helped me a lot with understanding some aspects of B&R.
Thanks again
Gabriele