BE 12 and VSS locks Server 2003

[LANtek-Matt]

BackupExec 12 Service Pack 2 (Problem occured prior to Service Pack 2)

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Service Pack 2 (unsure if this occured prior to SP2)

Microsoft VSS rollup has been applied. KB940349

Windows is kept up to date on patches and problem has been occuring irregularly since mid-November.

When the backup starts, regardless of which resource is selected first, as soon as the VSS service starts the system stops responding.  The screen is black, the mouse and keyboard are unresponsive, users are unable to communicate through the network, but the system will respond to a ping. BE job usually shows a small amount of data collected, 128K or so.

Only option is to manually power off system and power back on, usually first thing in the morning (6AM).  When it does, the event log reports "The previous shutdown at 2:00AM was unexpected".  No other errors are reported in the event log.

Backup is set to start at 2AM. The shutdown time is seconds before the VSS starts.  Prior to this, backups were set for 11PM and the same thing happened.  We moved the backup to 10:10PM and did not run into the problem for unknown reasons.  EU then wanted backups after midnight and the program ran well for 4 days and last night it happened again.

I'm out of ideas and my next step is to open a ticket with Symantec.  Can I test VSS to verify that it is the cause?  Can I turn VSS off in BE?  Can additional logging be turned on somewhere?  Any ideas on solutions or tests are welcome.

Message Edited by LANtek-Matt on 01-27-2009 08:26 AM

[a_s1]

Hi, have you been succesfull with this issue? We are having same problemm though we use inbuild NTbackup.exe for backing up.
It is Win 2003 R2 SP2 x64 machine, 4xhdd in raid10 + 2xhdd in raid1

It gets unresponsive either on 12:00 am (vss snapshot because of "previous files" featrue) or in midnight at 00:15 am (right at the begining of snapshot ... in event viewer there is last entry in 11:59...)

Only manual reset "works" then.

We have also Virtual server 2005 x64 sp1 installed (with 2x Win XP x32 clients) on the server.

Please, have you solved this mystery ?

[BillyHuston]

We have a similar issue where our server locks up when backing up exchange using the AOFO option at all. It will get to the end of the BE log below and  the system will just stop (lock). No errors, no event recorded, nada. There was no changes or updates made to the server or BE prior to the issue occurring which is perplexing that it just started to do this for no apparent reason. (of course there is one, just have not been able to find it yet)

SYSTEM SPECS:
Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2
Exchange Server 2003 V.6.5.7638.1
Back Up Exec 11d V.11 Rev. 6235 (Updates installed: SP3, Hotfixes 35,38,39)
Installed VSS Update KB951568 (after issue started occurring)


Event Log shows a successful Freeze, Snapshot, and Thaw of the Exchange store.

BACK UP EXEC LOG
----------------------------------------------------------------------
AOFO: Started for resource: "\\SERVER NAME\Microsoft Information Store\First Storage Group". Advanced Open File Option used: Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS).
The following volumes are dependent on resource: "E:" .
The snapshot provider used by VSS for volume E: - Microsoft Software Shadow Copy provider 1.0 (Version 1.0.0.7).
Network control connection is established between .............(edited)
Network data connection is established between  .................(edited) 
\\SERVER NAME\Microsoft Information Store\First Storage Group
Family Name: "Media created 9/15/2009 12:00:01 PM"
Backup of "\\SERVER NAME\Microsoft Information Store\First Storage Group "
Backup set #3 on storage media #1
Backup set description: "Exchange Backup"
Backup Method: Full - Database & Logs (flush committed logs)
Microsoft Exchange Server Agent: Started
The option to enable the restore of individual items from the database backup was selected for this backup.
Backup started on 9/15/2009 at 12:03:47 PM.
The consistency check of the snapshot for the Microsoft Exchange transaction log Logs was successful.

(The log stops here with no errors here or in the system event logs)

Any ideas are greatly appreciated!

[L__Quarton]

  In that last example, you can modify your Exchange backup job so that it does not do a consistency check before starting the backup.  It caused problems on my Exchange server so I had to get rid of it.  Exchange 2005 doesn't like it - I don't know about later versions of Exchange.

  Just open the backup job - choose "Microsoft Exchange" from the left-hand window - unclick the option to "Perform a consistency check before . . . . . . . . . ."  



  I'm sorry I have no experience with Matt or seznam's issues above.

I'm sorry I have no experience with the first 2 issues above.