Verifying VSS Works Correctly

Question

I have errors during backup and I assume they are caused by Microsoft Shadow Copy and the VSS Engine. How can I find out if the error is outside of R1Soft's CDP product ?

 
Sample error:
An error occurred during the asynchronous execution of VSS operation  'VssWrapper::DoSnapshotSet'. VSS_E_PROVIDER_VETO - A provider error  occurred. The provider logged the error in the Application Event Log.

Solution

Microsoft's VSS engine has its own problems and can break for a variety of reasons. However, the MS backup program (NTbackup or the new Windows Server backup) can still perform a backup but not use VSS. The default is to try to use VSS first and if there are any problems the report after the backup will tell you if it was able to use VSS. If the internal backup program can use VSS to perform it's own backup... then VSS should be considered to be working fine and thus the CDP program should also be able to use VSS. If there are any problems with VSS the CDP program will not be successful and the VSS problem must be addressed and fixed before attempting any CDP backups with that Windows Agent.

One way to isolate VSS issues is to run a backup with the NT or WS Backup Utility that comes with Windows Servers. Select to back up a few small files like log files or other text files and place the backup files anywhere you like. Note that in Windows 2008 you might need to have a 2nd partition to store your temporary backup file(s) on since you cannot store the backup on the System drive (usually C:). Then at the end of the backup you should see a Report / Details that you can view. This report will tell you if the NTbackup or WSbackup was able to use VSS or not.

 
Successful backup using VSS taken from the Report or Details:

VSS settings: VSS Copy Backup

or

Backup (via shadow copy) of "C:"

Verifying VSS Works Correctly

Verifying VSS Works Correctly

Question

Solution

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