Error code: 0xe0009596 - Unable to create the metadata for either the virtual machine or the disk of the virtual machine when restoring a VM from an Incremental Backup Set

[massimiliano_2]

Hello,

we are setting up a new VMware vSphere 4.1 Update 1 production infrastructure as described below:

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- 2x virtualization hosts each running VMware ESXi 4.1 Update 1 Build 348481 and equipped with 2x QLogic 8Gb FC Single-port HBAs.

- 1x EMC VNX5100 Dual SP enclosure with Fibre Channel front-end ports running VNX Block OE release 05.31.000.5.011.
- 1x physical Windows server running Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard x64 SP2, VMware vCenter Server 4.1.0 Build 345043 and Symantec Backup Exec 2010 R3 fully updated media server software. This server is also equipped with 2x QLogic 8Gb FC Single-port HBAs so that it can directly access the virtual machines residing on the SAN and the backup operations can be offloaded to the media server without affecting the production ESXi server hosts.
- 2x EMC Connectrix DS-300B 8Gb SAN Switches both running Firmware release v6.4.1a and typical zoning configuration are used in conjunction with the Dual SP enclosure and the Dual QLogic 8Gb FC Single-Port PCIe HBAs to eliminate any Single Point of Failure on the SAN.
- Both the VMware ESXi 4.1 Update 1 hosts and the physical Windows server are using their native multipath support.
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As part of the process of configuring and testing extensively the new VMware vSphere 4 infrastructure in our lab before going to production we successfully attempted:

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- Complete VM backups using the SAN Transport mode and GRT capability enabled.
- Incremental VM backups using the SAN Transport mode and GRT capability enabled.
- SAN-based restores of previous complete virtual machines Backup Sets using the SAN Transport mode.
- Individual file restores from within a Windows Guest virtual machine running the Backup Exec Agent for Windows.
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Unfortunately so far, we attempted to perform VM restores from an Incremental Backup Set using the SAN Transport mode with any success even though the backup was originally using SAN Transport, the restore job always fails with final Error code: 0xe0009596 - Unable to create the metadata for either the virtual machine or the disk of the virtual machine.

NBD restores from the SAN backups also fail.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Regards,

Massimiliano

[CraigV]

Hi,

Check the Symantec TN below and see if it helps you...

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH128565

thanks!

[massimiliano_2]

Hi there,

thank you for your reply.

I had already checked the Symantec TN above, however none of the files mentioned in that article are present on the Backup Exec data directory of the media server (C:\Program Files\Symantec\Backup Exec\Data).

Furthermore, only VM restores from an Incremental Backup Set fail.

Thank you again for your contribution to this technical discussion.

Regards,

Massimiliano

[Colin_Weaver · Accepted solution]

Well as you don't mention the Backup Exec version and we have done a lot of work on AVVI across the BE 2010 mreleases I'd start by making sure you are using BE 2010 R3 (13.0.5204) with all the latest Hotfixes installed and then re-test.

Also initially only test with NBD restores (from the SAN backups) and using Backup to disk not tape.