Hi David,

What is the Windows OS version you have for that client? 2003 or 2008 ?

And in the vssadmin list writers command , do the System Writer exists or not ?

Please try the following as well:

1- Stop Networker services on the client.

2- Rename /nsr/tmp on the client to tmp.old

3- Start services on Networker client

4- Delete the shadows on the client using diskshadow (If your client OS is Windows 2008 Or 2008 R2)

To delete snapshots or shadows, use the steps mentioned in following Powerlink solution on how to delete orphaned snapshots in Windows 2008:

http://solutions.emc.com/EMCSolutionView.asp?id=esg106514&usertype=C

Then re-run the backup again and check how is it going. Otherwise we will go with re-register the VSS dll files.

Waiting your updates if this works or not, and the information requested as well.

Thanks,

Ahmed Bahaa

Hi David,

I would suggest you to set the client retries to "0", to avoid 2 requests for VSS, when performing the second retry.

I see IIS there, so I was wondering if this server is part of a SharePoint farm.

If NMM, please check if that is an EFI system. If it is EFI is not yet supported.

If not EFI then check in the Application and System event logs for an event related to VSS, VolSnap or VDS, looks like VSS service is failing to complete the snapshot creation, or the snapshot created is not consistent.

Can you see all the writers in vssadmin list writers, including IIS, System Writer etc?

Do you have any old shadow?

vssadmin list shadows

Do you have any other provider?

vssadmin list providers

Also ensure to set in the group properties the inactivity timeout to "0" to avoid timeouts, but I think this looks more VSS related issue than NetWorker, based on the error message.

Thank you.

Carlos.

Ahmed,

This is a 2008 R2 64 bit system.

I followed the steps that you presented and the backups still failed.  Every time I would run the backups the ASR writer would go into a failed state (8) status and the COM+ REGDB writer and Registry Writer go into a Waiting for completion state (5).  I can get everything back to normal by running net stop vss and net start vss.  That will put all the writers back into a stable\no error mode.

Do you have any other idea that may work to resolve this issue.

Thanks,

David Rose

Hi David,

Did you have the chance to check my previous post?

Any update on it?

Can you please provide the output of the commands I posted, as well as the output of the command:

vssadmin list volumes

Also, did you have the chance to check Application and System event logs? This could be either a Microsoft/VSS issue or a configuration issue for VSS.

We need to know if there is any HW provider, the volumes available for VSS, and the list of writers available on that system.

We also need to know if this is en EFI system:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFI_System_partition

Also, what is the saveset you have specified for that client?

Is this a cluster or stand-alone server?

Thank you.

Carlos.

Hi David,

Do you have EFI system partition in your client as mentioned by Carlos in the previous posts ? It is not supported yet for backing up with NetWorker.

Kindly also note that during a backup, NetWorker checks for the type of operating system. If it is Windows 7 or Windows 2008 R2, it ensures that the partition containing the BCD is mounted and then assigns a drive letter to the mounted partition and performs the backup of the BCD. This partition which contains the BCD files is the System Reserved partition, you have to assign a drive letter for that parttion.

You can check this partition in Disk Management by following these steps:
1. Open Disk Management by Clicking Start > Run and type diskmgmt.msc in the Open: line and click OK.
2. Under the partitions, you'll notice a 100MB 'System Reserved' partition

3. Right click the partition listing and select 'Change Drive Letter and Paths'.
4. Click 'Add' and select the drive letter you wish to use and click 'OK'.

If it is not EFI partition, and you assigned a drive letter, it should works. Waiting your updates.

Thanks,

Ahmed Bahaa

Hi Ahmed,

If I remember well that was a requirement for 7.5.x, but there is no longer the need to assign a letter to the reserved partition.

NW should perform a backup anyway even if there is no letter manually assigned.

Thank you.

Carlos.

Yeah,

It's a bit confusing, but I think that some of those customers have the save -a "´ignore-all-system-missing-files"´ command, as the error message returned by VSS when reserved partition has not letter assigned and when there is some system missing files, because of a piece of software got uninstalled but still there are some entries in the registry is very similar besides, having the OS up to date with latest VSS patches can also help.

Thank you.

Carlos.

Hi Carlos,

Actually i had a customer who had that issue before with 7.6 SP2 on windows 2008 R2 and it has been fixed with assigining a drive letter to the system reserved partition. I had checked from a while the NetWorker Administration guide 7.6 SP3 version for that issue and i found the same note for assiging a drive letter for the system reserved partition. However i had a lot of other customers who had their system backups running successfully without assiging the drive letter to that partition.

Thanks,

Ahmed Bahaa

Totally agree with you Carlos about that, sometimes it is some missing entries in the registry ( most of the time actually), but for those customers who had that issue on 7.6.2 and solved with assigning a drive letter, was not having the ignore-all-system-missing-files and no registry missing entries, and when i assigned a drive letter, it works perfectly.

May be the issue was with the OS updates and latest patches, as some customers dont have that option to have all the systems up-to-date an easy one ( CRs, downtime, etc...), so this may be a factor.

As far as i remember that was a requirement for 7.6.2.x and higher as you mentioned, but may be it is now not a requirement and became a fix in special cases , still confused

Thanks,

Ahmed Bahaa

Appreciate all the input.  This server does have the 100MB System Reserved partition but there is no drive letter attached to it.  It's a VM (not sure if that makes a difference).  We do not do any backups for IIS on this server, just data, System State and DR.  These are the current writers:

C:\Users\expedient>vssadmin list writers

vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line too

(C) Copyright 2001-2005 Microsoft Corp.

Writer name: 'Task Scheduler Writer'

   Writer Id: {d61d61c8-d73a-4eee-8cdd-f6f9786b7124}

   Writer Instance Id: {1bddd48e-5052-49db-9b07-b96f96727e6b}

   State: [1] Stable

   Last error: No error

Writer name: 'VSS Metadata Store Writer'

   Writer Id: {75dfb225-e2e4-4d39-9ac9-ffaff65ddf06}

   Writer Instance Id: {088e7a7d-09a8-4cc6-a609-ad90e75ddc93}

   State: [1] Stable

   Last error: No error

Writer name: 'Performance Counters Writer'

   Writer Id: {0bada1de-01a9-4625-8278-69e735f39dd2}

   Writer Instance Id: {f0086dda-9efc-47c5-8eb6-a944c3d09381}

   State: [1] Stable

   Last error: No error

Writer name: 'SqlServerWriter'

   Writer Id: {a65faa63-5ea8-4ebc-9dbd-a0c4db26912a}

   Writer Instance Id: {d0daae0d-b55a-452b-95e1-2a2f9300fa86}

   State: [1] Stable

   Last error: No error

Writer name: 'System Writer'

   Writer Id: {e8132975-6f93-4464-a53e-1050253ae220}

   Writer Instance Id: {cf0d4827-4d41-4d4b-ac0f-f3b0367f1f8b}

   State: [1] Stable

   Last error: No error

Writer name: 'TermServLicensing'

   Writer Id: {5382579c-98df-47a7-ac6c-98a6d7106e09}

   Writer Instance Id: {12fc5c27-5e95-481e-8be3-6abd6209f8c9}

   State: [1] Stable

   Last error: No error

Writer name: 'ASR Writer'

   Writer Id: {be000cbe-11fe-4426-9c58-531aa6355fc4}

   Writer Instance Id: {5775e798-b838-4194-9736-7a0b9817a08d}

   State: [1] Stable

   Last error: No error

Writer name: 'IIS Config Writer'

   Writer Id: {2a40fd15-dfca-4aa8-a654-1f8c654603f6}

   Writer Instance Id: {63f92a51-8f33-4b8f-b163-b1f4f7c1331f}

   State: [1] Stable

   Last error: No error

Writer name: 'IIS Metabase Writer'

   Writer Id: {59b1f0cf-90ef-465f-9609-6ca8b2938366}

   Writer Instance Id: {865d990e-e621-4e8b-8525-d90d707e6e3d}

   State: [1] Stable

   Last error: No error

Writer name: 'Shadow Copy Optimization Writer'

   Writer Id: {4dc3bdd4-ab48-4d07-adb0-3bee2926fd7f}

   Writer Instance Id: {b0e1a879-6391-464c-b9d9-6d8a350e239d}

   State: [1] Stable

   Last error: No error

Writer name: 'Registry Writer'

   Writer Id: {afbab4a2-367d-4d15-a586-71dbb18f8485}

   Writer Instance Id: {054e4b95-7f73-4805-9c78-9725d63186b5}

   State: [1] Stable

   Last error: No error

Writer name: 'COM+ REGDB Writer'

   Writer Id: {542da469-d3e1-473c-9f4f-7847f01fc64f}

   Writer Instance Id: {a6d9e117-1322-4909-b5b5-f45282b99ba0}

   State: [1] Stable

   Last error: No error

Writer name: 'WMI Writer'

   Writer Id: {a6ad56c2-b509-4e6c-bb19-49d8f43532f0}

   Writer Instance Id: {e39f5310-9b31-46ff-85e3-85f147190da3}

   State: [1] Stable

   Last error: No error

And this is the current provider:

C:\Users\expedient>vssadmin list providers

vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool

(C) Copyright 2001-2005 Microsoft Corp.

Provider name: 'Microsoft Software Shadow Copy provider 1.0'

   Provider type: System

   Provider Id: {b5946137-7b9f-4925-af80-51abd60b20d5}

   Version: 1.0.0.7

Appreciate all the help.

David Rose

Hi David,

No differs between the VM and physical machine for that backups.

Is that System Reserved partition an EFI system partition type ? If it is not would you please give it a try to assign a drive letter to it and test the backup again. If it is EFI you will not be able to backup it as it is unsupported till the moment.

Waiting your updates.

Thanks,

Ahmed Bahaa