VSS Problem on Server 2012

Try to troubleshoot it using this article - http://kb.acronis.com/content/36200 ( a lot of content in collapsed views) . Some things to check are snapshot storage and condition of VSS writers.
Also check this one - http://kb.acronis.com/content/37472 - although the error message is different.

Fedor -

I'm afraid I'm getting nowhere with this - and I still can't get a good FULL backup of my OS drive. I ran through the troubleshooting steps in the two links you provided above. They got me all the way to the end - where it told me to click and contact Acronis technical support because the problem can't be resolved with the troubleshooting. As I no longer have a support agreement, the support site then redirects me back to the forums. Kind of a catch-22.

My last attempt was to recreate a brand new scheduled task with only a FULL backup defined - turned off VSS completely so there should be no SNAPSHOT issues. The backup failed stating it couldn't READ FROM DISK. Tried running CHKDSK while the OS was still up and running (Server 2012 allows this now). No errors found. Tried running CHKDSK again at boot up time - rebooted. Reran the backup - failed again. There appear to be no problems with the physical disk, yet Acronis keeps stopping with a CANNOT READ FROM DISK error.

I then went to the LOGS and tried plugging in all the error messages that are showing up on the http://kb.acronis.com/errorcode website. That was completely USELESS - EVERY single error code I entered returned the message "We are sorry. There is no information about this error available now." And I mean EVERY error code! Not sure what error codes ARE covered in that website - but to be sure the ones I've included in the attached log ARE NOT included!

Any other suggestions?

Russ Foszcz

Not having any hands-on experience with troubleshooting snapshot issues, I can't advise anything more, unfortunately.

Hello Roy,

thank you for your postings!

Fedor, thank you very much for helping!

1) To check if VSS snapshots can be successfully created outside of our software, please follow the guide in this article.

2) Even if you create a backup with disabled VSS Acronis SnapAPI driver makes snapshot. If such snapshot is failing, it can show the issue with SnapAPI or errors on disk.

3) If VSS snapshoting works fine but Acronis Backup still fails, please create a bootable media, start your server from it and create a backup. It helps us to make sure that your drives are in order and the issue is on the side of the SnaAPI.

Please let me know the results.

Thank you.

Anna -

Thanks for your reply - and sorry for the delay. I wanted to try a couple more things before I responded. Unfortunately, nothing I tried was of any value and I'm still struggling to get a full backup. If I schedule the FULL backup it fails every time. If I run it manually and choose to IGNORE the errors (it stops twice during the backup) - I can get the backup completed although the integrity of the backup is (of course) suspect if I'm ignoring errors as I back up. I've attached three documents pertaining to the steps that you asked me to follow. I have a feeling that my problem lies within the inability to create a VSS snapshot anywhere (see acronis_diskshadow_results.txt). I also tried to reregister the VSS executables (acronis_reregister_vss_services.txt). The re-registration of service executables did nothing to alleviate the problem.

What seems "odd" to me is the discrepancy I seem to get in the Acronis logs. If you look at the third attachment (acronis_-_c_drive_full_backup_results.txt)you'll notice that the error is "unable to create VSS snapshot". However when I run the full backup manually, the error that Acronis throws is NOT a VSS error, but rather "unable to read from the disk"; as if there is a bad sector on the hard disk. The drive is brand new (Seagate 1tb drive) that was replaced after my Server 2008 OS disk crashed and burned. I replaced the drive and installed Windows Server 2012. The backup worked flawlessly for about 6 months or so and now consistently stops with either "read errors" or "unable to create VSS snapshot".

I noticed that Acronis just released an update to the 11.5 server product so I'm going to install that and retry to see if there may be something in the new build that helps me out. Otherwise??? If you have any suggestions for looking into the VSS problems that show up in the first attachment I'd REALLY appreciate your feedback. Very frustrated at this point and not sure where to go next...

Russ (aka Roy)

what storage system you are using on the Windows 2012?

Hello Roy,

thank you for your reply and further information.

The results of DiskShadow utility show only that the writers have not been included into the backup but have no errors. In order to include the writers, you have to list the writers first and then specify these writers in the writer verify command (please note that you have specified the VSS providers instead of the VSS writers).

The log of the full backup operation contains three different errors for snapshot failure:

1. The request is not supported with the resulting Failed to take a VSS snapshot. This means that the VSS snapshot fails but the error message is not clear enough to say why. After that the SnapAPI snapshot is attempted.
2. SnapAPI snapshot produces first CRC error that can be caused either by the data corruption on the disk and should be fixed by a CHKDSK run, or by the fact the the SnapAPI drivers were not installed correctly. Please follow this article to collect the log and to run the check.
3. Then the Not enough storage is available to process this command error appears that can be result of insufficient system resources as for example in this article.

My recommendations in this case would be:

• To check that VSS works correctly and that Acronis Backup & Recovery does not cause it's failures. Create a shadow copy of volume C: as described in step 1.2 of this article. If it fails, uninstall the Acronis VSS Provider as described here, restart the VSS service and re-attempt the shadow copy.
• To make sure that the disks contain no errors and the issue is indeed in the SnapAPI module, boot the server from the bootable media and create a backup with it. If it shows the same errors, then there should be something wrong with the disk and the CHKDSK is not able to fix it. Try backing up the same disk on other controller or a different disk (a USB attached disk for example, just to make sure it works well).
• If the bootable media works well and the issue in SnapAPI is suspected, then I recommend to uninstall the software, reboot and install the latest build (currently build 38350 is available).
• Make sure that the system resources are not overused. Check the RAM and CPU consumption during the snapshot failure. Deactivate the demanding applications (antivirus, SQL etc.) during the backup.

For further troubleshooting of issues with VSS and SnapAPI, the VSS log (vssadmin output) and the SnapAPI log are necessary. See steps 3.1 and 3.2 in this article. Please collect them if the recommendations above do not help.

Thank you,

Dmitry -

A BIG thank you for your help in tracking down my problems. As it turns out, I was finally able to get the CHKDSK (after multiple runs) to identify bad sectors on the drive. I finally got a good backup last night with no errors. My previous attempts at CHKDSK were run with the /f switch. The last was run with the repair option (/r). Unfortunately I was under the impression that the fix option (/f parameter) had the same results as the repair option.

At any rate, Acronis backups appear to be running fine now and I can rest much easier. Thanks again.

Russ