Windos 10 1709 Bitlocker and Veeam Agent for Windows

[ben.nakagawa]

Hi

I have trouble run backup job in windows 10 X64 1709 release,
It always stop at VSS snapshot step and cause error.
Event log shows the space is not enough. However it allocated about 15% of 1TB space and there is a plenty of fee space.
Taking system recovery point is not issue and create snapshot happily.

VSSADMIN list Writers shows some of the writes get timeout after the Veeam backup task is run. It was no error show before.

I have two of my machine with same issue ( Pro and enterprise edition) and others has no issue ( pro and enterprise).
Thought boy the difference and the one failed is surface tablet and laptop whcih has bitlocker on the system drive ( before upgrading to 1709).

I have disabled bitlocker on my machine and wait for decryption is completed, rerun the backup task and it went without error.
I have not yet put bitloacker on but thought someone has same issue and looking for cause. I took hours to search but did not find obvious answer, but I recall similar issue with window 8 whcih Microsoft patched.

Veeam backup task was happily running on 1703 release but not on 1709 when bitlocker is on.

Thanks,

PS, if any one has experience no issue with bitlocker on, please let me know.

[vClintWyckoff]

Ben-
Could you open a support case through the VAW UI so that we may get the debug logs for analysis? Please post the case ID also.

Thanks.

[ben.nakagawa]

Sure!
It's done from one of my laptop it has failed before but run successfully after bitlocker is taken off.

case no is : 02354349

Thanks,

[ben.nakagawa]

Bit of update on this. case is still open.

I found the offended partition/volume is recovery partition.
If I exclude this space from backup job it runs just fine.

Checking with VSSADMIN command this volume has no shadow space allocated. Without bit locker, it should be able to use on the system drive , hence no issue on that case.
However with bitloker on, it can not be used on different drive. It must be changed with 1709 that include target to be encrypted drive. ( because it sued to be worked fine with 1703)

I allocated temporary drive letter to recovery partition and VSSADMIN to create dedicated shadow copy space on that drive.
It get's different error indicating shot of storage rather than space not found.

So my option here is
1. run backup exclude recovery drive ( The backup works but bare metal full restore at once may be no longer option?)
2. Reside partitions and allocate more pace in recovery partition. ( seems to be bit of waste of space if the available space is tight)
3. Create recovery media on USB memory stick and delete this partition all together.

I'm going to test option 2 may be on this weekend.

Ben

[ben.nakagawa]

Update 2

The option 2 that I increase the size on recovery partition as well as allocation enough shadow storage also worked. Since partition has changed it effectively taking full backup so I have reset to recreate new database in registry.

I do not test option 3 as no.2 worked OK just matter of find the sweet spot for space allocation.

It must be changed something from 1703 to 1709 for handling of shadow storage for this hidden recovery partition or even making that partition.

This is purly speculation but could be required size is increased by could not find enough space creating shadow storage when window upgrade was carried on and it was created without ( I do not see any specific need or shadow storage on recovery partition - it is hidden and all system proceed files and folders there)

I'm not 100% sure if the shadow storage was existed on recovery partition before windows upgrade. <- any one can confirm this?

If veeam can handle backup of recovery partition without taking shadow copy could be another option. UEFI Fat32 drive ( also hidden) was never been a problem.