Unsolved Veeam Agent for Windows VSS Snapshot Error with SqlServerWriter
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Essentially a new install of Veeam Agent for Windows. System is a fully up to date Windows Server 2012 R2. The backup fails with this message about VSS Snapshot Error because it cannot create a snapshot.
Creating VSS snapshot Error: Failed to create snapshot: 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: [{e302a002-9251-4283-bf20-a53b2813da86}]. Writer's state: [VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_FREEZE]. Error code: [0x800423f2]. Error: Failed to create snapshot: 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: [{e302a002-9251-4283-bf20-a53b2813da86}]. Writer's state: [VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_FREEZE]. Error code: [0x800423f2].
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@scottalanmiller said in Veeam Agent for Windows VSS Snapshot Error with SqlServerWriter:
Essentially a new install of Veeam Agent for Windows. System is a fully up to date Windows Server 2012 R2. The backup fails with this message about VSS Snapshot Error because it cannot create a snapshot.
Creating VSS snapshot Error: Failed to create snapshot: 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: [{e302a002-9251-4283-bf20-a53b2813da86}]. Writer's state: [VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_FREEZE]. Error code: [0x800423f2]. Error: Failed to create snapshot: 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: [{e302a002-9251-4283-bf20-a53b2813da86}]. Writer's state: [VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_FREEZE]. Error code: [0x800423f2].
Any previous backup software?
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VSSadmin list writers will show the failed component - maybe it is from a previous backup software as dbeato suggested
Could try Acronis VSS Doctor on the host - link
Try unchecking Backup Integration Services in the Management --> Integration Services area to get a crash-consistent backup at minimum and see if it works.
This link says the issue will be fixed in Server 2016, 2012 R2 applies to this message, but is not mentioned for fix...
Re-Install up-to-date Guest Integration services on the Guest VM
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Thanks. Will look into it and get back soon.
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Is there a SQL VSS writer service you can turn off so Veeam's is used instead?
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Even though the following links are for Altaro, they could help.
https://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/hyper-v-backup-vss-error-0x800423f3-event-id-22-and-event-id-12292/ -
Our go-to solution for VSS problems is to set up a dedicated snapshot volume. Otherwise we were getting timeouts and M$ does ugly things that don't make sense when VSS doesn't work properly.