VSS failed to initialize for directives, error=0x8007007b

This is client issue and most likely the one described by NW124497.  This is fixed in 7.6.2.3 which has been released to public last Friday.

Sorry, I did find it.  Installing it now.

Thanks for your response.

7.6.2.3 is not yet posted on the web.  I will wait for the update, apply it and then run a backup again.

I'll let the Forum know what happens.

Installed 7.6.2.3.  Did not help.  Same error message.  Engaging EMC Tech support also.

Wow,

I'm having the exact same issue.  Any fix from EMC support?

EMC Tech support could not figure out after spening a couple of hours.  They wanted more logs and reports from the backup server which I provided them early this morning.  In the meantime, I was also searching for a resolution.  I noticed that when I ran the "vssadmin list writers" on the client, I saw one of the writers had an error.  It was the "SPSearch4 VSS Writer".  It said the writer is unstable.  I also checked the Event Viewer and saw an error code '2155348129', Event Id 521.  I Googled the error and came across a article that solved my problem.  I do not know why a Sharepoint issue would cause a VSS error.  After following the document and running the commands mentioned in the article, I was able to backup successfully.  I have provided a link to the Technet blog.  If a external link cannot be inserted in this Forum, let me know and I shall send you the link to your email.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2011/07/06/potential-issues-after-installing-sharepoint-foundation-2010-sp1.aspx

I'm is the same boat.  They asked me to do a test backup and dump the output.  The server i'm having a problem with is a cluster pasive node running W2K8 R2.  It's not running sharepoint. But, I'm going to review the provided link. Thanks!

Enviroment:

Networker Server is W2k, 7.6.Build.142
NW Client side 7.6.1.3 Build 442

There was a issue with Cluster Servers that was fixed in version 7.6.2.3.  You may want to install that on the client and see if it helps.

Thanks for the suggestion.  I upgraded the client, but I'm still getting:

ERROR: VSS failed to initialize for directives, error=0x80070002: The system cannot find the file specified.
7154:winworkr: Unable to set up VSS filesystem directives. Failed to back up D:\.

The engineer just called me to say he was reviewing my logs...

Hrvoje Crvelin wrote: Oh, I just realized you are talking about passive cluster node.  Funny enough, I did have something like this months ago (also cluster, also win2k8 R2, running SQL if of any interested).  We found in that specific case that issue has been caused by hardware VSS provides (as we used storage snapshots that were supposed to be integrated with Windows and SQL application).  Along with that, we learned that this combination caused certain unstability of cluster every 2-3 weeks causing failovers so as soon as we got rid of HW VSS provider and started to use native one (MS) things got back to normal.  This piece of information applies only if you use VSS provider from other vendor than MS of course...

Pardon my ignorance. Would EMC's Powerpath qualify as an HW VSS provider??? I know it's used to connect to the cluster drives / LUNS.

Oh, I just realized you are talking about passive cluster node.  Funny enough, I did have something like this months ago (also cluster, also win2k8 R2, running SQL if of any interested).  We found in that specific case that issue has been caused by hardware VSS provides (as we used storage snapshots that were supposed to be integrated with Windows and SQL application).  Along with that, we learned that this combination caused certain unstability of cluster every 2-3 weeks causing failovers so as soon as we got rid of HW VSS provider and started to use native one (MS) things got back to normal.  This piece of information applies only if you use VSS provider from other vendor than MS of course...

Hrvoje Crvelin wrote: bramos wrote: Thanks for the suggestion.  I upgraded the client, but I'm still getting: ERROR: VSS failed to initialize for directives, error=0x80070002: The system cannot find the file specified. 7154:winworkr: Unable to set up VSS filesystem directives. Failed to back up D:\. The engineer just called me to say he was reviewing my logs... This error code, in Windows world, is returned whenever some application (eg. backup) tries to do a certain file-related operation, like opening a file, and the file is not there.  Given this is happening with VSS I suspect there is something in registry causing application to think something is there, but it is not.  From what has been seen from log you will never find it what it is.  Does this happen only with D drive?  If so, go to client and run following command: save -s -D9 -b -v D:\ > C:\debug.log 2>&1 Note, above I used root C: drive to place log.  In case of space shortage use some other drive (just don't use D:\).  This will create debug log which should contain eventually the error and might contain more details on what is causing (might as this depends on VSS framework and how wiling to cooperate is).  Make sure also to check event log.  If it fails and log would not reveal point of failure in a way that it makes clear what is causing it, try Windows backup for the same D: drive - you might get lucky with native solution.  If debug attempt would be successful, there might be something with the way how client is configured on server side (NetWorker) that is causing this.  Some scientist also believe that answer to everything in Windows world is reboot thus if in position to carry out scientific experiment you may wish to give it a try too.

Thanks for your assitance,  The EMC engineer had me do exactly what your saying and send it to him.  I tried to do a backup of the system state using MS Windows backup and it errors out without saving anything to its log.  I can however backup the physical drives (C:\,D:\,etc.. with MS Backup without error.

We will be applying the hot fix tonight during a change window.  I will advie to our results.

Here's an excerpt of what his (EMC Tech support) reply was:

_____________________________________________________________________________________

I understand that H: drive is not part of the backup save set. But Networker runs a check on all file system while backing up anything from the passive node.

This is where it is trying to access the H : (GetVolumeMountPoint failed for h:\tomcat 5.5\bin -- 2 ) 

This was a known issue from Microsoft side and they have a solution for this by creating a registry key.

This was a known issue from Microsoft side and they have a solution for this by creating a registry key.

However we also tried to get around this issue by changing our code.

You will need to first try 7.6.2.3 build of Networker client.

Backup of MSCS physical node fails with "VSS failed to initialize for directives"

http://solutions.emc.com/EMCSolutionView.asp?id=esg119802

If it still fails with same error after installing 7.6.2.3 client. Then we will need to refer to below article from Microsoft.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/980794/en-us

bramos wrote: Thanks for the suggestion.  I upgraded the client, but I'm still getting: ERROR: VSS failed to initialize for directives, error=0x80070002: The system cannot find the file specified. 7154:winworkr: Unable to set up VSS filesystem directives. Failed to back up D:\. The engineer just called me to say he was reviewing my logs...

This error code, in Windows world, is returned whenever some application (eg. backup) tries to do a certain file-related operation, like opening a file, and the file is not there.  Given this is happening with VSS I suspect there is something in registry causing application to think something is there, but it is not.  From what has been seen from log you will never find it what it is.  Does this happen only with D drive?  If so, go to client and run following command:

save -s -D9 -b -v D:\ > C:\debug.log 2>&1

Note, above I used root C: drive to place log.  In case of space shortage use some other drive (just don't use D:\).  This will create debug log which should contain eventually the error and might contain more details on what is causing (might as this depends on VSS framework and how wiling to cooperate is).  Make sure also to check event log.  If it fails and log would not reveal point of failure in a way that it makes clear what is causing it, try Windows backup for the same D: drive - you might get lucky with native solution.  If debug attempt would be successful, there might be something with the way how client is configured on server side (NetWorker) that is causing this.  Some scientist also believe that answer to everything in Windows world is reboot thus if in position to carry out scientific experiment you may wish to give it a try too.

bramos wrote: Hrvoje Crvelin wrote: Oh, I just realized you are talking about passive cluster node.  Funny enough, I did have something like this months ago (also cluster, also win2k8 R2, running SQL if of any interested).  We found in that specific case that issue has been caused by hardware VSS provides (as we used storage snapshots that were supposed to be integrated with Windows and SQL application).  Along with that, we learned that this combination caused certain unstability of cluster every 2-3 weeks causing failovers so as soon as we got rid of HW VSS provider and started to use native one (MS) things got back to normal.  This piece of information applies only if you use VSS provider from other vendor than MS of course... Pardon my ignorance. Would EMC's Powerpath qualify as an HW VSS provider??? I know it's used to connect to the cluster drives / LUNS.

Not PowerPath, but you may have EMC VSS providers as it seems as you have EMC storage beneath (but usually this is not necessary unless using snapshoting integration with snapshot management on disk arrays).  In my case it was NetApp and we used their VSS snapshot provider along with SQL backup, but it didn't perform well so we went back to traditional VDI approach via SQL module (I'm trying to avoid NMM as much as I can as VSS is pretty much broken... interesting enough same happened with 2003, but there things got in order after roll up patch was released... didn't see one for 2008 yet).