Backup Exec fails with A failure occurred querying the Writer status

[Brave_heart]

I have had this situation for a couple of weeks now on my servers, both physical and VM.

All are server 2012r2 and all are running BE 2014.

 

i am regularly getting "The job failed with the following error: A failure occurred querying the Writer status. See the job log for details about the error."

 

I have googled but can't find anyone with recent experience of this.

I have checked the VSSADMIN stuff, restarted the relevant services, rebooted, stopped shadow copies and re enabled them, all to no avail.

 

Any thoughts?

 

 

 

[yac2016]

Have you ran Live Update within Backup Exec?

[FragglePete]

I used to get this all the time - typical BE behaviour - work perfectly for months and then for no reason start throwing up errors, left, right and centre...... then settle down again with no real reason as to why it failed.

 

Best solution we implemented .... ditched BE and put Veeam in instead. Problem solved!!!

 

Pete

[Brave_heart]

yes, i have run live update. am wondering if this is an MS update that has caused the problem.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Pete - thanks - i run Veeam too. However i am paranoid about backups and like to run both.

[backupbjoern]

Hi Andrew,

 

Could you share what is logged from VSS in the application event viewer log at the time of the backup, on the server you are backing up?

Have you considered upgrading Backup Exec?

 

BB

[yac2016]

Or leaving Backup Exec!

[andydis]

However i am paranoid about backups and like to run both.

 

Do they backup at the same time?

[Brave_heart]

folks, truly sorry for delay in getting back

 

So, thought it might be a fault in my Raid array. Moved all my VMs to another Hyper V Host.

My SQL Server is still not backing up correctly but interestingly everything else is......

 

Yes, BE runs at night, as does Veeam and it has done happily for about 2 years now. Everything stopped in early Feb.

 

Veeam is backing up the VMs fine. Its BE thats not working.

 

V-79-57344-65233 - Snapshot Technology: Initialization failure on: "\\xxxxxxxxxxxxx\System?State". Snapshot technology used: Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS).Snapshot technology error (0xE000FED1): A failure occurred querying the Writer status. See the job log for details about the error.Check the Windows Event Viewer for details.Writer Name: Automated System Recovery, Writer ID: {BE000CBE-11FE-4426-9C58-531AA6355FC4}, Last error: The VSS Writer timed out (0x800423f2), State: Failed during freeze operation (9).Writer Name: COM+ Class Registration Database, Writer ID: {542DA469-D3E1-473C-9F4F-7847F01FC64F}, Last error: The VSS Writer timed out (0x800423f2), State: Failed during freeze operation (9).Writer Name: Registry, Writer ID: {AFBAB4A2-367D-4D15-A586-71DBB18F8485}, Last error: The VSS Writer timed out (0x800423f2), State: Failed during thaw operation (10).Writer Name: System Files, Writer ID: {E8132975-6F93-4464-A53E-1050253AE220}, Last error: The VSS Writer timed out (0x800423f2), State: Failed during freeze operation (9).Writer Name: Windows Management Instrumentation, Writer ID: {A6AD56C2-B509-4E6C-BB19-49D8F43532F0}, Last error: The VSS Writer timed out (0x800423f2), State: Failed during freeze operation (9).

[mukz]

I upgraded up to 16 and majority of my issues have now gone! Only issue i have with sql is that it doesn't like an offline db but still backups properly.

 

For the Veeam guys, we are also looking into this but do you do with physicals.

[Brave_heart]

Mukz - you had the same issues i had but they are none dealt with on the upgrade?

[mukz]

Mukz - you had the same issues i had but they are none dealt with on the upgrade?

 

Backup exec is a pain at times! But it keeps me on my toes - to be fair it has worked for me when I've needed to restore. Did a full site restore onto new servers in a separate building and it was successful.

[FragglePete]

For the Veeam guys, we are also looking into this but do you do with physicals.

 

Using Veeam end point which is free. Backups up as an agent to Veeam so it utilises your repositories, copy to tape, disk, etc. I run with one physical DC and use End Point to protect this.

 

Pete

[Brave_heart]

Think i may have found it.

Pays to read the error more closely!

 

https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.000021683

 

Will let you know if this fixes it.

[mikes]

I used to get this all the time - typical BE behaviour - work perfectly for months and then for no reason start throwing up errors, left, right and centre...... then settle down again with no real reason as to why it failed.

 

Best solution we implemented .... ditched BE and put Veeam in instead. Problem solved!!!

 

Pete

 

exactly the same error we had and funnily enough the same solution too !

We also tried testing disaster recovery in Backup Exec and just couldn't get it to work - we came to the conclusion that the software didn't really work, and if we had a disaster we would be screwed.