Errors Backing Up Master Database on SQL VM

[HJAdams123]

Hello and Good Evening Veeam Community...

I am on Veeam 6.5, hypervisor is ESXi 5.1 I among the virtual machines I am backing up with Veeam are two SQL servers. Both virtual machines are Windows 2008 R2 with SQL 2008 R2 SP1. I perform reverse incremental backups on these two SQL servers each night. The backups complete each night successfully. But of the past month or so, the SQL servers record an Event ID 3041 in the application log, Event message is "BACKUP failed to complete the command BACKUP LOG master. Check the backup application log for detailed messages."

I assume this is referring to the default master database on the SQL instance. This event happens each night right around the time the Veeam backup job finishes. Both SQL servers get this same Error in the application log, and it always a failure to complete that command to backup what I assume is the transaction log of the master database? (no SQL expert at all) I do have Application Aware processing enabled in my job, and I do truncate the log files in the Veeam job.

Anyone ever seen this before? Any clues?

[veremin]

As far as I'm concerned, there might be mupltiple causes of the error you see:

First of all, this error might occur if a transaction log backup is attempted on a database that has been recently switched from the Simple to Full recovery model, and no full backup has been performed before the transaction log backup. SQL server will raise an error because the log backup would not be usable.

Furthemore, lack of free space can be also the cause. Thus, it might be worth freeing up more space and seeing whether it helps.

Additionally, this event can be recorded, when a database included in a backup plan is taken offline.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.

[Dima P.]

Hello Harold,

Additionally I would strongly recommend to check SQL Server error log as it could provide much more detailed explanation than application winlog.

[HJAdams123]

Hello and Good Afternoon Veeam Community...

I wanted to follow up on this in case anyone else ran into this in the future. For me it turns out that having the system database "master" in full recovery mode was causing this issue. We changed the recovery mode to simple, and we haven't encountered the issue since....

-Harold

[baatch]

Hey

Case# 00251835

I'm using the application aware imaging feature and on 1 VM with Windows Server 2012 + SQL Server 2012 I get several error messages in the eventlog: BACKUP failed to complete the command BACKUP LOG model. Check the backup application log for detailed messages.

The Veeam job reports that everything went fine. And I have tracked the date and time stamp of the error to correlate to when the veeam job does "Truncating transaction log".

I have several other vm's that also has sql but don't get this error.

Any clues?

[veremin]

You have been merged to the existing discussion which is primarily concerned with similar issues; thus, it might be worth taking a look at the answers provided above.

If none of the proposed solutions helps you, please keep working with our support team and kindly update the topic with found resolution.

Thanks.

[baatch]

Just checked if the System Database master was in Full recovery mode but it was not.

Haven't got response from support yet either. We have sql maintenance jobs taking backup of database and log during the day fine and they are scheduled to not run at night when the Veeam job runs.

[baatch]

Quick update for anyone else having this problem.


I worked it out with Veeam support. The problem relates to permission changes in SQL server 2012 for the NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM account. It does not have permission to perform log truncation. They suggested to give NT AUTHORITY/SYSTEM account db-backupoperator" priviligies for the databases that you back up or just give sysadmin if your lazy.

I had 2 VM's with SQL 2012 and only one of them had this problem. And the one that worked had BUILTIN\Administrators as sysadmin so I added that BUILTIN\Administrators to sysadmin on the VM that failed and it works after that.

[veremin]

Hi, Alexander. Thanks for coming back and updating the topic with the found resolution; much appreciated.

[MrDBA]

I've been getting the same errors for some time. The proposed solution makes me very uncomfortable. I am very unhappy with the prospect of a 3rd party tool thinking it needs to "truncate" my logs. With the db in Full recovery mode, anything that interfers with the logs could affect my ability to do a point in time recovery. Can anyone confirm if a VEEAM backup has any impact on db recovery?

[wishr]

Hi Peter,

Welcome to Veeam Community Forums and thanks for posting!

Have you had a chance to take a look at our SQL server backup documentation? We offer simplified tools for managing T-logs, but if you'd like to keep using any native/non-Veeam solutions for T-logs management - feel free to use the Copy Only mode!

Thanks