Forum Discussion

Nuri_Inuki's avatar
Nuri_Inuki
Level 4
12 years ago

BE2010R3 - AOFO: Initialization failure using VSS - VSS Snapshot Failed

Backup was working fine for a few months and then all of a sudden I started getting this error.  Weird thing is that I didn't tell it to use AOFO option when backing up...so not sure why I'm getting an AOFO error. I've already tried restarting the server.  Any ideas?

Full error message below:

Backup - AOFO: Initialization failure on: "\\Server\System?State". Advanced Open File Option used: Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS). V-79-10000-112177 - VSS Snapshot error. The Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) snapshot failed. Make sure that all provider services and tasks are running. Check the Windows Event Viewer for details.

Windows Event Viewer Reports:

Source: VSS
Event ID: 12289
Description: Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Unexpected error DeviceIoControl (\\?\Volume{21089296-a5ff-11d9-b1de-806e6f6e6963} - 00000178,0x0053c020,0003A690,0,00039688,4096,[0]).  hr = 0x80070017.

 
For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
2010
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  • Nuri_Inuki's avatar
    Nuri_Inuki
    12 years ago

    Okay, I finally figured out the issue.  First, enabling AOFO did not address the issue.

    I ended up going onto the server that was throwing the errors and ran a "vssadmin list writers."  I saw a bunch of writers listed of which two of them had "State: Failed" and "Last Error: No Error."  Further research suggested that the associated services needed to be restarted to address these kinds of failure.  For me, the services were Cryptographic Services and IIS Admin Services.  Once I did that, all the writers was in a stable state and my backups no longer failed.

    For a list of services associated with the writers:

    http://activelydirect.blogspot.com/2011/01/resolving-system-state-backup-failures.html

  • VJware's avatar
    VJware
    Level 6
    12 years ago

    check the status of the vss writers... you might need to re-register the VSS .dll's or reboot the machine (depending upon the OS)

    any specific reason for not explicitly enabling aofo ?

  • Nuri_Inuki's avatar
    Nuri_Inuki
    Level 4
    12 years ago

    Last admin who built the job did not have it enabled.  When I rebuilt the job, I thought we had to pay for that option, so I didn't enable it either.

    Will enabling AOFO address this issue?  How do you re-register the VSS dlls?  I've already tried rebooting the machine and that didn't fix the issue (Windows Server 2003 SP2).

  • VJware's avatar
    VJware
    Level 6
    12 years ago

    Check if this patch is installed or not - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940349 & http://support.microsoft.com/kb/887827

    And as you are using BE 2010, AOFO is not a paid option...enable the option...choose the system microsoft vss provider...

  • Nuri_Inuki's avatar
    Nuri_Inuki
    Level 4
    12 years ago

    Okay, I finally figured out the issue.  First, enabling AOFO did not address the issue.

    I ended up going onto the server that was throwing the errors and ran a "vssadmin list writers."  I saw a bunch of writers listed of which two of them had "State: Failed" and "Last Error: No Error."  Further research suggested that the associated services needed to be restarted to address these kinds of failure.  For me, the services were Cryptographic Services and IIS Admin Services.  Once I did that, all the writers was in a stable state and my backups no longer failed.

    For a list of services associated with the writers:

    http://activelydirect.blogspot.com/2011/01/resolving-system-state-backup-failures.html