VSSControl error

[jay2]

One of the Vms in my client's backup is failing. The job error is "cannot create shadow copy of the volumes containing writer's data. Does anyone know what would be causing this error message? Thanks

[Mike Resseler]

Hi Jay,

What workload is inside that VM? This could be due to many reasons:

It could be because of this reason: https://www.veeam.com/kb1794
In case of SQL it could be because of this reason: https://www.veeam.com/kb1915

And it could also be that one of the writers inside the guest is in a bad state (which mostly can be fixed with a reboot). And there can be tons more reasons for it.

My advice would be to create a support call and log the case ID here (and the follow-up after that) or start with looking at some of our KB's and if that is not the case still log the support call

Thanks
Mike

[jmmarton]

An additional troubleshooting step is to look at the Windows Event Log for VSS errors that happen the same time as the backup job error. Those errors can be used for further searching in our KBs and even Microsoft's.

Joe

[kilobits]

Check status of VSS writes. In command prompt type > vssadmin list writers . Check the state and last error of the writers.

[WRS2200]

Sometimes I run into this issue and have trouble finding a time to reboot which is the easiest option.
Usually if that is the case, I will list the vss writers. If it hangs or doesn't return an output, I will restart the Volume Shadow Copy service.
If one of the writers comes back as failed, I will find the corresponding Service Display Name and restart the service.
I will then try and re-run the job.
This is hit and miss sometimes I will have to investigate further with additional troubleshooting steps described by jmmarton.

[jay2]

I ended up rebooting the server. This solved the issue. Thanks for your Posts

[Mike Resseler]

Hi Jay,

Good to know. This would lead me to believe one of the writers had an issue and a reboot cleared it. Happens from time to time. But thanks for coming back with the solution. Much appreciated!