Exchange and VSS -- My Exchange writer is in a failed retryable state…

re: Exchange and VSS -- My Exchange writer is in a failed retryable state…

TIMMCMIC — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 14:04:12 GMT

@Habibablby:

Without the full application log it's going to be hard to predict why the freeze of Exchange is failing.

I would suggest opening a case with PSS if you could.

TIMMCMIC

re: Exchange and VSS -- My Exchange writer is in a failed retryable state…

Habibalby — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 04:44:13 GMT

Been with this for awhile and now again it's happened on my Exchange 2007 and Veeam Backup.

11/16/2012 8:43:20 PM :: Unable to release guest. Error: Unfreeze error: [Backup job failed.

Cannot create a shadow copy of the volumes containing writer's data.

A VSS critical writer has failed. Writer name: [Microsoft Exchange Writer]. Class ID: [{76fe1ac4-15f7-4bcd-987e-8e1acb462fb7}]. Instance ID: [{8ea7190d-337c-448f-b264-3401303b586b}]. Writer's state: [VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_FREEZE]. Error code: [0x800423f2].]

re: Exchange and VSS -- My Exchange writer is in a failed retryable state…

martola — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 00:38:32 GMT

Hi TIMMCMIC,

what do you mean when you say "The volume is defragmented (being exacerbated by item 1 in this list)."

did you mean the volume is fragmented? Please let us know.

re: Exchange and VSS -- My Exchange writer is in a failed retryable state…

TIMMCMIC — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 14:23:09 GMT

Andreas:

First and foremost I think it's a great assumption on your part that there's some deficiency in either VSS or Exchange that is causing your issue.

If you read the error you'll see that it indicates a timeout has occured. VSS / Exchange has 30 seconds to allocate the snapshot in order to satisfy the backup. When a timeout error occurs it's usually related to anciallary items:

1) The incorrect volume formatting is utilized (for example an Exchange server should utilize 64K formatting not the default 4K)

2) The volume is defragmented (being exacerbated by item 1 in this list).

3) The hardware is having issues at the time of the backup.

Maybe you should open a support case and allow the issue to be investigated. I would also have expected the backup vendor to also have some insight into these types of issues.

TIMMCMIC

re: Exchange and VSS -- My Exchange writer is in a failed retryable state…

Andreas — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 13:37:22 GMT

@TIMMCMIC: What then, if TSM TDP backup fails consistently for weeks with the following error:

ANS5261W An attempt to create a snapshot has failed.

ANS1327W The snapshot operation for 'INT-EXCHDB-01\Microsoft Exchange Writer\{76fe1ac4-15f7-4bcd-987e-8e1acb462fb7}\Mailbox Database 09\c2244697-3994-4587-8234-e2bc9bbd4e79' failed with error code: -1.

Clearly, the VSS "Last Error" message indicates that something isn't working as intended.

Writer name: 'Microsoft Exchange Replica Writer'

Writer Id: {76fe1ac4-15f7-4bcd-987e-8e1acb462fb7}

Writer Instance Id: {15642e98-5677-43ce-9a56-8dd1a6f32745}

State: [7] Failed

Last error: Retryable error

Writer name: 'Microsoft Exchange Writer'

Writer Id: {76fe1ac4-15f7-4bcd-987e-8e1acb462fb7}

Writer Instance Id: {bddc9190-b6e2-4a64-b07b-58280cd7de33}

State: [7] Failed

Last error: Timed out

What is the backup application supposed to do other than report the problem and ask Microsoft to please fix their product so it doesn't fall over every time someone tries to use it in the real world?

re: Exchange and VSS -- My Exchange writer is in a failed retryable state…

TIMMCMIC — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 03:24:23 GMT

@TT:

In most cases a writer left in a failed state means the previous backup failed. What you are hopefully looking at is what lead up to the failed writer and not the failed writer itself...

TIMMCMIC

re: Exchange and VSS -- My Exchange writer is in a failed retryable state…

TT — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 02:29:27 GMT

but most of the time after fixing that into stable/no error it works.. :-)

re: Exchange and VSS -- My Exchange writer is in a failed retryable state…

TIMMCMIC — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 01:41:22 GMT

@TT:

I am suggesting that there are occassions where this type of issue occurs becuase of the order of calls the backup vendor is making.

More importantly what I'm suggesting though is that a failed writer is not necessarily something that needs to be fixed. In supporting these types of cases what i've noticed is a lot of attention paid to the state of the writer and "fixing" the writer from a failed state. In theory the writer being failed is simply telling you that a previous operation failed and should not preclude the taking of future backups (and therefore is not something that requires fixing before continuing to troubleshoot a backup issue).

TIMMCMIC

re: Exchange and VSS -- My Exchange writer is in a failed retryable state…

TT — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 23:57:54 GMT

Hi...so you suggesting the logic need to be fixed from backup vendor rather than MS? Believe vendors have worked together with MS before releasing the product and most likely they already aware of the issues/fixes? This affects all backup products...