Creating VSS snapshot Error

[jaseruk]

I've had this issue occur at two completely different customer this week. One is on a 2012 R2 guest, one is a 2008 R2 guest, both are running on VMware.

Tickets are 03191648 and 03191483

In the guest helper logs on both I am seeing;

Code: Select all

    Failed to collect component info: class util::CHostVssInfo
13/09/2018 14:29:46   5600  ERR                                         Cannot collect VSS info.
13/09/2018 14:29:46   5600  ERR                                         Cannot initialize VSS subsystem.
13/09/2018 14:29:46   5600  ERR                                         Timed out waiting for GatherWriterMetadata() to complete in GetHostInformation().
13/09/2018 14:29:46   5600  ERR                                         VSS error: VSS_S_ASYNC_PENDING. Code:0x42309

There are plenty of other VMs all running fine and migrating to a new host does not resolve.

[jaseruk]

Sorry, just seen this in the Veeam agent forums, my issues are on Veeam backup and replication, backing up virtual machines. Same VSS error though it seems.

[tohhmas]

Same issue here, ticket ID 03192805.

The guest helper logs:

Code: Select all

13/09/2018 21:00:46   7348                                              Collecting VSS info.
13/09/2018 21:00:46   7348                                                      Initializing VSS subsystem.
13/09/2018 21:00:46   7348                                                          Creating VSS backup components.
13/09/2018 21:00:46   7348                                                          Initializing for backup.
13/09/2018 21:00:46   7348                                                          Setting backup state to VSS_BT_LOG.
13/09/2018 21:00:46   7348                                                              Disabling VSS writers.
13/09/2018 21:00:46   7348                                                          Collecting VSS writers metadata.
13/09/2018 21:30:46    584                                                      Initializing VSS subsystem.. Failed.
13/09/2018 21:30:46    584                                              Collecting VSS info.. Failed.
13/09/2018 21:30:46    584  ERR                                     Failed to collect component info: class util::CHostVssInfo
13/09/2018 21:30:46    584  ERR                                         Cannot collect VSS info.
13/09/2018 21:30:46    584  ERR                                         Cannot initialize VSS subsystem.
13/09/2018 21:30:46    584  ERR                                         Timed out waiting for GatherWriterMetadata() to complete in GetHostInformation().
13/09/2018 21:30:46    584  ERR                                         VSS error: VSS_S_ASYNC_PENDING. Code:0x42309

All other VMs are fine.

Things that have changed recently in our environment:
Upgrade from vCenter 6.5 to 6.7
Most recent Windows Server 2016 patches being installed on the Veeam Servers. (Not the VM in question though)
Reissued vCenter certificates

We've tried a reboot of the server, and restarted the VSS admin service.

I've noticed that post failure of the backup, our scheduled VSS snapshots are also failing until I restart the VSS service. After which they run properly until the next Veeam backup is run.

[Vitaliy S.]

Tohhmas, I'm a bit confused on the vCenter server and other facts referring to the virtualization. Do you back up your VMs with Veeam Agent or this is a misplaced post and it should be in Veeam B&R section?

[tohhmas]

Hi Vitaliy, yes this is ESXi B&R backups, just like the person above me. Can create a new thread in the proper section if required, although it looks like a similiar issue has already been posted now and featured in the weekly digest: vmware-vsphere-f24/vix-with-vmware-tool ... 53177.html

[Vitaliy S.]

The original message is about Veeam Agent, so I will move your posts as well as posts from jaseruk to the Veeam B&R forums. Let's see what our support team can find out on the issue.

[bdufour]

in the job, under guest processing, please try the 'test now' option under guest interaction proxy - to verify it completes successfully.

[skrause]

You said you are running VSS snapshots regularly. Are you by chance using "no limit" on the maximum size for your VSS snapshots?

I found that we had to set a maximum size to stop random VSS errors/lockups happening when AAIP processes ran.

[ChuckS42]

Are you also seeing CAPI2 513 errors? If so, follow this article:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/hel ... ows-server

I've seen this a few times now, and following those instructions fixed it.

Additional: The CAPI2 513 error has been around a very long time. It used to be that you could safely ignore it. After the most recent OS updates, it seems that sometimes you can't ignore it any more.

[tohhmas]

Are you also seeing CAPI2 513 errors? If so, follow this article:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/hel ... ows-server

I've seen this a few times now, and following those instructions fixed it.

Additional: The CAPI2 513 error has been around a very long time. It used to be that you could safely ignore it. After the most recent OS updates, it seems that sometimes you can't ignore it any more.

No CAPI2 513 errors on this server I'm afraid.

You said you are running VSS snapshots regularly. Are you by chance using "no limit" on the maximum size for your VSS snapshots?

I found that we had to set a maximum size to stop random VSS errors/lockups happening when AAIP processes ran.

Yes it's set to no-limit and just rolls off the oldest when the volume is full (Standalone target volume for all shadowcopies). Did you set the limit to an arbitrarily high number?

in the job, under guest processing, please try the 'test now' option under guest interaction proxy - to verify it completes successfully.

Yes this completes just fine.

[skrause]

We target our VSS snapshots all to a separate disk in Windows so I just carved out chunks of the total size of the VSS target disk (with about 5% left for overhead) that corresponded to the relative sizes of the disks.

Once I got rid of the no limit settings the VSS errors went away.