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VanillaMastermind
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[SQL Server 2005] VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_PREPARE_SNAPSHOT

Post by VanillaMastermind »

I receive the following error when running a Veeam job with AAP against a SQL Server 2005 machine.

Processing *SERVERNAME* Error: Error code: 0x80004005 Failed to invoke func [Unfreeze]: Unspecified error. Unfreeze error: [Backup job failed. Cannot create a shadow copy of the volumes containing writer's data. A VSS critical writer has failed. Writer name: [SqlServerWriter]. Class ID: [{a65faa63-5ea8-4ebc-9dbd-a0c4db26912a}]. Instance ID: [{dde845d5-7a4f-4e61-b23e-f884fb922972}]. Writer's state: [VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_PREPARE_SNAPSHOT]. Error code: [0x800423f4].] Error code: 0x80004005 Failed to invoke func [

This is a server with very little usage, but it does have 6 instances running. I have followed the suggestions I have come across with no success
[*] Made sure SQL Server is patched to fix a potential cause of this bug. (it is)
[*] Made sure we're not running out of threads (3 simultaneous threads PER database are used) - we're not close to the default of 256, but I have bumped the "max worker threads" on each instance to 512 EXEC sp_configure 'max worker threads', 512 (In SQL 2005, an instance restart is required to change this setting, so I restarted each instance)
[*] After each failed job attempt, I have used "vssadmin list writers" to verify that SqlServerWriter was in a "failed" status. It was each time, and I restarted the SQL Server VSS Writer" service before trying the backup job again.

Every time I have started the job, I noticed that the first error in Event Viewer -> Application seems to be full-text search related.

The operating system returned the error '32(The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.)' while attempting 'CreateFile' on 'D:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.3\MSSQL\FTData\DocumentFullTextCatalog\SQL.HDR' at 'fulltext.cpp'(529).

Is anyone else having this issue, or does anyone have Veeam working on any SQL Server with full-text search? Do I need a pre-freeze and post-thaw script to stop/start any full-text services? Our old backup software NetBackup can back this server up fine without any scripting. When the NetBackup backup ran, SQL event logs would show each full text catalog being paused and resumed like so:

Changing the status to PAUSE for full-text catalog "BLAH"
Changing the status to RESUME for full-text catalog "BLAH"
nielsengelen
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Re: [SQL Server 2005] VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_PREPARE_SNAPSHOT

Post by nielsengelen »

Please contact our support to let them help you investigate this issue and see why VSS is failing.
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VanillaMastermind
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Re: [SQL Server 2005] VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_PREPARE_SNAPSHOT

Post by VanillaMastermind » 1 person likes this post

I believe I have found the issue. I think one of the full text catalogs was messed up. To see all full-text catalogs on the instance, I ran the following query:

select dbs.name as database_name
,ftc.name as full_text_catalog_name
,ftc.catalog_id
,ftc.status_description
from sys.dm_fts_active_catalogs as ftc
inner join sys.databases as dbs
on ftc.database_id = dbs.database_id


Then in SSMS, expand the database -> Storage -> Full Text Catalogs. Right-click on each catalog and click "rebuild". Most of mine rebuilt immediately. However, one ran for hours and would not finish. I tried to KILL the SPID via T-SQL, but that ran for hours as well. I was unable to stop the "FullText Search" service in SQL Server Configuration Manager. I had to use Windows Task Manager to forcefully end the process "msftesql.exe". Once this was done, I started the "FullText Search" service in SQL Server Configuration Manager. I then tried rebuilding the problematic full text catalog, and it ran right away. I then ran a Veeam backup and it ran fine. The SQL Server logs properly show the "Changing the status to PAUSE" and "Changing the status to RESUME" for each catalog now.
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