0xa000fec9 - A failure occurred accessing the Writer metadata

[Chris_Smith_2]

We have a Windows 2003 Server runing Backup Exec 9.1 Rev. 4691

We are receiving the following error during backups:

Job ended: Friday, October 13, 2006 at 2:57:00 AM
Completed status: Failed
Final error: 0xa000fec9 - A failure occurred accessing the Writer metadata.
Final error category: Resource Errors

If we reboot the server, the backups will complete ok for a day or 2, but then start failing again.

Hotfix 833167 has already been applied, as has Windows 2003 Server SP1 and Exchange 2003 SP2. The server is regulary updated with critical updates.

Because the server does it's backups in the middle of the night, there's no one available to check the VSS Writers' status right after a failure, but when checking later that day, they all show "No Errors".

Other than rebuilding the server from scratch, what else can we do to alliviate this problem.

[shweta_rege]

Hello,


When backing up the system state of a Windows 2003 server, VERITAS Backup Exec (tm) 9.0 implements a Microsoft technology known as Volume Shadow Copy. This will show on a server as the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS). To use this technology, we query writers. These writers actually gather the data from its current state and present it to the backup software in a manner that it can be backed up, even if the data is in use. If these writers are not working correctly, then the job will fail.


How to troubleshoot the error "A failure occurred querying the Writer status" using VSSADMIN

http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/261993.htm

Also please go through the following technote :

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;;Q826936


Thank You,


Shweta