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VSS - What's the best way to fix VSS issues

andy_lawrie
over 7 years ago

Do you always get systems that constantly have VSS failures , Some of the best ways to fix VSS issues

 

 

  • over 7 years ago
    Hi Andy:
    Sorry for the delay in replying -- for some reason your question has fallen through the cracks :)
    The VSS subsystem is pretty solid and most of the issues related to it are normally caused by external factors.
    Among these the most common are
    1. insufficient room for the VSS snapshots (please note that they grow during the backup and that Microsoft recommends to put aside at least 10% of the drive's available space for VSS snapshots; in reality the size of the VSS snapshots depends on the frequency and size of the I/O operations on the machine to be backed up).
    2. Issues in applications such as SQL or Exchange (for instance, removing a SQL database manually, without detaching it first in SQL will cause a VSS error).
    3. One time events that leave the VSS subsystem in an inconsistent state, for instance two backup application attempting to run at the same time.

    On a practical side, you need to check the state of the VSS writers, the VSS providers and to attempt taking a VSS snapshot outside the backup application to narrow down the cause of the issue.

    To get into detail please check support.software.dell.com/.../117647 which is a pretty good starting point. However, as you get more experience troubleshooting VSS, you will learn how to reset various VSS writers without rebooting the machine you troubleshoot. A good breakdown of the various VSS writers and how to reset them can be found here: support.software.dell.com/.../129774

    At last but not at least please find this KB support.software.dell.com/.../122647 shows how you can create VSS snaphots using vshadow or diskshadow (the preferred method). Please note that creating a snapshot in "full mode" either on an Exchange or SQL server with databases in simple recovery mode will trigger a log truncation.