Guest Interaction Failing after Veeam 13 Upgrade

[dlesser]

We upgraded some B&R Installs to Veeam 13. I did get a backup or two of some of the VMs but many are now failing. The setup involves needing Hyper-V Quiesce as the B&R server is on another subnet with no access to the Guests

If I edit the Job and test credentials I find:
Guest Credential Check results

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12/9/2025 11:36:37 AM Succeeded : Connecting to guest OS via PowerShell Direct via guest agent (0:00:05)
12/9/2025 11:36:37 AM Succeeded : Testing host accessibility via PowerShell Direct (0:00:05)
12/9/2025 11:36:43 AM Succeeded : Testing guest OS connectivity via PowerShell Direct via guest agent (0:00:05)
12/9/2025 11:36:43 AM Succeeded : Credentials and connectivity have been validated successfully for PowerShell Direct transport

When I run the backup Job I get

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12/9/2025 11:39:02 AM Succeeded : VM processing started at 12/9/2025 11:39:02 AM
12/9/2025 11:39:02 AM Succeeded : VM size: 80 GB (56.8 GB used)
12/9/2025 11:39:03 AM Succeeded : VM is now in the required state for processing
12/9/2025 11:39:04 AM Succeeded : Preparing to create snapshot
12/9/2025 11:39:10 AM Succeeded : Using guest interaction proxy CC-DC21 (Different subnet)
12/9/2025 11:46:13 AM Succeeded : Failed to connect to guest agent via GIP, failing over to guest agent connection through PowerShell Direct
12/9/2025 11:50:29 AM Succeeded : Failed to connect to guest agent through PowerShell Direct, failing over to guest agent connection
12/9/2025 11:51:20 AM Warning : Failed to create VM recovery checkpoint (mode: Veeam application-aware processing) Details: Unable to perform application-aware processing because connection to the guest could not be established
12/9/2025 11:51:20 AM Failed : Error: Unable to perform application-aware processing because connection to the guest could not be established

This is occurring on multiple systems unrelated to each other. They are in different locations and for unrelated clients. It does appear to be a problem with Server 2022. THe first two I am looking at are Server 2022 Hypervisors.

Case #07915243

Support has only asked me to try to do a production-only CheckPoint. Those work as expected. I can initiate a PowerShell Direct connection from the Hypervisor as outlined here: https://bp.veeam.com/vbr/Support/S_Hype ... ction.html

What other troubleshooting steps can I take? I have at least 10 failed VM backups at the moment.

[Gostev]

Hello, please keep in mind this is not a support forum, as it was explained when you clicked New Topic.

Your support engineer will instruct you on other troubleshooting steps to take.

Thanks

[dlesser]

I am aware. I provided my case number.

Support has only pointed me to two KB's

https://www.veeam.com/kb1174
We use PowerShell Direct and the RFC KB appears to be unrelated

https://www.veeam.com/kb3137
I can take Production-Only CheckPoints from the Hypervisor.

The amount of issues that Veeam 13 has is making business operations difficult. We appreciate community suggestions as Veeam does not provide adequate troubleshooting steps and support had the ticket for 8+ hours and has been unable to assist in anyway. This is a high severity ticket that will be upgraded to Critical when 10+ machines have been unable to backup for 2+ days.

[RobMiller86]

Not sure if related, we haven't dared to upgrade to VBR13 yet, probably won't until at least 13.3. Were still on 12.4 but over the weekend we began having issues with an 8 host Hyper-V cluster running Server Core 2022. Jobs are hanging on guest processing, never moving forward, consuming task slots, and I have to kill the Backup Service entirely to get them to stop. We also have no line of sight to the guest. We use PS Direct instead with the registry entry to force PS direct first. Some VMs work, many do not, and then eventually all proxy slots are consumed and the whole thing ceases to function. I'm opening a case now.

We've rebooted everything, ran updates, etc. Verified PS Direct seems to work fine with https://bp.veeam.com/vbr/Support/S_Hype ... ction.html

I found your post here, and while not exactly the same, sounds pretty similar.

[Gostev]

Potentially sounds like some recent Windows update then?

[RobMiller86]

Our clusters and Veeam related systems don't auto update. Nothing updated over the weekend. I first thought the same, that it had to be something like that. But I only just updated in an attempt to fix this issue. So idk. Will see what support says I guess.

[dorsia]

Are the VM's which are failing to back up clustered at all e.g SQL AG?
We are experiencing a similar issue and found that Veeam BR is attempting to access the admin$ share using a SQL AG listener IP, rather than the SQL server IP, which does not work with SMB.

Adding the SQL server IP and FQDN to Veeam BR hosts file is functioning as a workaround until this gets resolved.

[RobMiller86]

We don't have any clustered VMs. I still don't have any answers other than knowing it's related to guest interaction. Disable it and everything is fine. Enable it, and Veeam is now hanging forever on certain VMs, never timing out, and somehow a VM or two that gets hung like that end up consuming all 32 of our proxy task slots on this cluster bringing all backups to a halt. Guest interaction is now completely unusable for us. Haven't seen anything like this before.