Ms sql server error 3041 severity 16 state 1

Summary: Microsoft SQL Database often gets stuck in nasty errors that can be difficult to resolve. In this article, we’ll focus on SQL database error 3041, what it is, reasons for database error 3041, and how to resolve it.

SQL Server 2017 has been developed with a lot of advanced features over its predecessors. It supports ANSI SQL, which is the standard SQL Language used worldwide. It is also called as MSSQL, and it has various editions like Enterprise, Standard, Workgroup, and Express. SQL Server’s main interface tool is SQL Server Management Studio, and it supports both 32-bit as well as 64-bit environments.

Despite having a rock-solid foundation and an impressive feature set, SQL Server Database often gets stuck in errors, some of which may be difficult to handle even for experienced DBAs. One such error is SQL database error 3041.

SQL Server error 3041 occurs when there is a backup failure. It might happen with the entire database backup or with specific parts of the database. It appears when the database backup is being generated. The error message provides a description of the backup failure in the error log and to the client application.

Error: 3041, Severity: 16, State: 1.
BACKUP failed to complete the command BACKUP DATABASE master. 
Check the backup application log for detailed messages.

To understand the exact cause of the error, you will have to go through the SQL server error log entries which occurred before the 3041 error came up.

[Note]: The detailed error message does not get reported in the Application log.

Reasons behind SQL Server error 3041

Various reasons behind this error are listed below.

• Running a third-party application to back up SQL Databases can cause this error. Applications like LiteSpeed and Unitrends can cause error 3041 as they use VDI/VSS and VSS writer for backing up the database.
• This error comes up when the backup path doesn’t exist. For example, D:Backup is the folder location for the backup. If it doesn’t exist there anymore, or you are using an incorrect path, it will result in this error.
• If the backup file is locked by any other process, then the backup process will fail and result in this error.
• If there are permission issues with the backup folder, restricting the account with which you are trying to back up the database.
• If the database log space is not sufficient, it will result in error 3041. The database will remain busy in increasing the log size space, and thus backup task will not be successful.
• When you have migrated to a newer version of SQL database, this error might come up.

How to solve SQL database error 3041?

As we have seen the reasons behind the error, now let us see how we can resolve this error. You can use the below fixes one by one and see if it resolves the issue.

Fix 1: Take a full native backup

Firstly, take a full native backup of your database using the SQL Server Management Studio. You can also use the Query Analyzer for the same.

Once you have taken the full backup, you need to restart the VSS writer from the third-party applications. Now backup the model database from the third-party applications and the transaction backup log should be successful.

Fix 2: Check the location of the backup path

Ensure that the backup path location that you are using is correct and the folder exists there. Also, make sure that there are no trailing spaces in the folder name, as it can result in mismatch while the backup process is going on.

Fix 3: Check if the backup file is locked

If your backup file is locked by any other process, then you need to close the file. Here are the steps to close the file.

1. Go to Computer Management.
2. Navigate to System Tools -> Shared Folders.
3. Open Files. There you can see the backup files.
4. Right-click the backup file and click “Close.”

Once the above steps are complete, you can take the backup. If the backup is still not successful, then you will have to stop client scheduler and client acceptor services. Here are the steps to do so.

1. Go to Computer Management.
2. Navigate to Services and Applications.
3. Go to Services -> Client acceptor and scheduler.
4. Stop services.
5. Go to the backup folder and then delete the file.
6. Now start the services again and try taking up the backup.

Fix 4: Grant full control on the backup folder

You need to provide full control on the SQL Server service account as well as the account using which you are trying to take the backups. If the permissions are restricted, you won’t be able to take the backup successfully.

Fix 5: Check database log space

When a backup is performed on the SQL Server database, there is a corresponding entry created in MSDB backup set table. You need to make sure that the log files and data of MSDB is not set to auto-growth. If it set to auto-growth, you need to disable it.

Also, make sure there is a sufficient amount of free space on the disk drive where the MSDB files are generated. After doing so, you can reschedule the backup job.

Fix 6: Check for corruption in the database

The database should be free from any type of corruption. Therefore, check for all the configuration changes you have made, and make sure that you restart the system whenever a new database is added to the server and full back up is taken after restarting the machine.

If you find that there is corruption in the database, the best way to resolve it is by using Stellar Repair for MS SQL. This advanced SQL Database Repair software detects the root cause of database corruption and rectifies it to resolve database corruption. The tool is equipped with an interactive GUI which makes working with it extremely easy.

To Conclude

SQL Database error 3041 can occur anytime when you are trying to take a backup of your database. So, if you run into trouble with this error, you can use the fixes mentioned above to resolve it. So, what are your views on this? Do let us know in the comments section below.

SQL Backup Error 3041 – Top Ways to Fix MS SQL Server Error

This blog will provide the complete and easiest way to fix SQL backup error 3041. Simply read the complete article carefully to get rid of this error immediately. Stay tuned!

MS SQL Backup Error 3041 – Know What Exactly it is

Backup error 3041 is a generic error that is returned when a backup fails. Along with this error, there are additional errors returned and can be found in the SQL Server log, so we can also call it SQL server backup log error 3041.

After understanding about this MS SQL backup error. Now, let’s proceed further to know more about this issue with the help of user’s real-time scenario.

User’s Real-time Scenario

#Query 1: Hi, currently I am working on to resolve this error:

“Error: 3041, Severity: 16, State: 1 BACKUP failed to complete the command BACKUP DATABASE WITH DIFFERENTIAL. Check the backup application log for detailed messages.“

I had a full backup of the database, but somehow I failed earlier today in the morning. I checked the event viewer which also indicates to check the backup application log. So, how to check backup application log? Or any ideas to solve this MS SQL 3041 backup error problem. If yes? then please suggest me. Thank you very much in advance

#Query 2: Backup Error: 3041, Severity: 16, State: 1.

This SQL error 3041 backup failed message prompts after I failed from taking backup. Now, I need an efficient solution to fix this issue. Thanks.

Quick Solution: In some cases, this MS SQL backup error 3041 occurs due to the corruption issues. So, you should check that database is free from any type of corruption.

However, you should check all the configuration changes you have made. Also, be sure to reboot the system every time a new database is added to the server and a full backup is performed after rebooting the local system.

Note: The above-stated solution is not a proficient one to fix SQL server backup failed error 3041. So, in this situation, you can choose an alternative method to get satisfactory results. In the oncoming section, we will discuss the same. Get a quick look:

An Eminent Way to Fix SQL Backup Error 3041 Without Data Loss

After considering the above-mentioned queries we would like to provide you a rapid solution named SQL Backup Recovery. Using this amazing utility, you can easily get rid of this SQL backup error 3041 without data loss.

The tool has an explanatory and understandable interface. O, any user either novice or technical can operate it without taking any expertise help. However, you can download it on any Windows OS machine because it extensively supports all editions of Windows Operating System.

So, let’s proceed ahead to the oncoming section, where we will disclose the steps to fix SQL error 3041 backup failed.

Steps to Resolve SQL Server Backup Failed Error 3041 Issue

Here, in this section, we will disclose the instruction to fix SQL server backup log error 3041. You just have to follow all the steps to execute the procedure. Let’s begin:

Step 1: Download free demo version of the eminent utility by selecting the download button.

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Step 2: Click Browse button to add SQL Server BAK files. Then, select the version of your SQL backup file.

Step 3: Now, choose the Multiple Backup file options to backup and export multiple BAK files at once.

Step 4: Select the preferred files and click on the Recover button to backup file which is corrupted and showing error.

Step 5: After completion of the scanning and recovering data components process. Opt the desired elements and hit on the Export button.

Step 6: Choose Export to between SQL Server Database and SQL Server Compatible SQL Scripts. And opt Database Authentication option then, add all the details.

Step 7: Click on the required SQL database items and choose export option between with Schema & Data and With only Schema.

Step 8: Press the Export button to export recovered backup file to the SQL Server Database.

Step 9: At last, the application will pop-up a message after successful completion of the backup procedure.

Attention Note: The free download version allows you to export only 25 records. So, it is better to go with the purchase edition of the application.

Concluding Thoughts

How to fix SQL backup error 3041? It is a most commonly asked query by the MS SQL users. SQL server backup failed error 3041 can be occur anytime to anyone. So, by performing the above-suggested solutions, you can fix this SQL error 3041 backup failed without any data loss.

Please, Take a look here:
How to troubleshoot «Msg 3041» in SQL Server

Excerpt from page:

Message 3041 is a generic report about the backup failure. To
understand the cause of the error and resolve it, you must use the SQL
Server Error log entries that occur before the 3041 event entry.
Typically, 3041 is preceded by a detailed error message that states
the real reason for the backup failure. The detailed error messages
are written only to the SQL Server error log and to the client
application. The detailed message is not reported in the Application
log in Windows.

Update (After reading @dezso comment)
I’ve seen the «extra error» reported, but I’m not sure that they are related to the backup error. The backup error is dated at 20:31:06, but the «extra error» are dated at 17:53:27, so the extra error happened about 2 hours and 40 minutes before the actual backup error. And these extra error are related to a logon issue.

I don’t think that a logon issue happening at 17:53:27 could result in a backup failing at 20:31:06. So a think that the backup error, and that the «extra error» are unrelated.

I also don’t think that a generic error happening at 17:53:27 could result in a backup failing at 20:31:06 (unless the DB is really big).
@Arviddk report that «my SQL Server backup keeps failing on a lot of the databases» I think it’s safe to assume that «a lot» mean more than 10 DB.
So I think that if a single backup of a single DB take more than 2 hours and 40 minutes, you cant have 10 or 20 DB like that on a single server… or your server will spend it’s life doing only backup. So I assumed that the single backup take a lot less than 2 hours and 40 minutes, so I think that the backup error and the extra error are not related.

And the last «cachestore flush / ‘Bound Trees'» error reported is dated at 06-11-2012 20:30:11, so it’s something happened after the backup error. Anyway a problem related to the cache shouldn’t result in an error (event if it can slow down something).

Some questions
Some questions that could help identify the issue:

• How much time does it take a FULL backup to execute?
• How much time does it take a DIFF backup to execute?
• Does the error happen only on DIFF backup?
• Which percentage of backup does fail? (1%? 10% 50%)
• Maybe you can try to only do FULL backup to check if it’s an issue related to the DIFF backup? (I’ve never done any DIFF backup on SQL Server, I don’t have experience with them)

According to the MS website in the SQL Server log there should be some others error related to the failed backup, but I’m expecting something more near, in time, to the time at which the backup is failing.

Backup and restore operations even though they are supposed to be a no-brainer, it can leave you wanting to tear your hair out. Considering the different elements that influence the outcome of a successful backup operation like backup media, consistency of the backup, network issues (if backing up to a UNC path), consistency of the database being backed up etc.

I shall attempt to outline a set of troubleshooting steps specifically for non-native backup/restore related errors for SQL Server databases.

Any BACKUP command that completes successfully or with errors has associated messages logged in the SQL Server Errorlog.

A successful backup from the SQL Server Errorlog:

Database backed up. Database: adventureworks, creation date(time): 2010/05/28(03:00:18), pages dumped: 17291, first LSN: 67:7733:56, last LSN: 67:7761:1, number of dump devices: 1, device information: (FILE=1, TYPE=DISK: {‘F:adventureworks.bak’}).

You will see that the backup completion message has the database name, the number of pages that were contained in the backup, the date the backup was created and the number of devices and their type (in this case files). So you can reconstruct the sequence of backups even if your backup information history is missing from the MSDB system tables and you just have your SQL Server Errorlogs to play with. If you want to get real fancy about this, then you could spin up a nifty little Powershell or VBScript to parse through the SQL Errorlogs and provide the backup sequence to you as well.

Now, let’s look at a failed backup message from the SQL Errorlog.

Error: 18204, Severity: 16, State: 1.
BackupDiskFile::CreateMedia: Backup device ‘R:adventureworks.bak’ failed to create. Operating system error 3(The system cannot find the path specified.).
Error: 3041, Severity: 16, State: 1.
BACKUP failed to complete the command BACKUP DATABASE adventureworks.

You will notice above that the Operating System error code associated with the backup failure is reported in the error message. More often than not, the error message is self explanatory. If the error code doesn’t throw back an error text along with it, you can get the windows error code associated with the error code using net helpmsg <error number> from a command prompt window.

In the above case, there wasn’t any R: drive on my server. Now that I have finished stating the most obvious of troubleshooting methodologies for SQL native backups which was done to set the context for the next part of this post. The troubleshooting methodology for non-native backups.

Non-native SQL backups of databases use one of the following methods:

1. Use of APIs exposed through SQLVDI.dll to perform a VDI based backup
2. Use of VSS framework to perform a snapshot backup of the SQL Server database

Note: In this post, I shall not be addressing any storage level backup solutions that have options or features to handles SQL database backups.

This post is aimed at discussing the tackling of VSS/VDI related errors that you face while performing a database backup.

If a VDI backup fails, then you can try the following sequence of troubleshooting steps:

1. Attempt a backup to the same location using native SQL backup from a query window or SQLCMD. This might not always be possible as some of the backup tools do not allow any other backup application to connect to the backup share apart from the backup tool’s agents.
2. The next thing that you can do is to ensure that your SQLVDI.DLL is updated to the latest build. For this you can use the SQL Server Backup Simulator available on Code Gallery using the “Validate VDI Installation” option in the tool. This check in the tool will perform basic checks like current DLL version and additional checks based on root causes of common scenarios that CSS has seen in the past for VDI backup failures. Additional information on the usage of the tool is available here.
3. Perform a backup of the database using the tool for which the backup is failing (to the same destination if possible). The parameter tweaks at this point are not available in the current version like striped backups, changes to MAXTRANSFERSIZE/BUFFER COUNT etc. but if the backup from this tool is successful, then you know for a fact that the SQLVDI APIs are working as expected. Then it is either an additional piece of logic in the backup software that is failing or there is an external factors like network/backup media or there is a resource crunch on the SQL instance on which the database resides.

Common errors that you might see during a VDI backup operation failure:

Error message 1
BackupVirtualDeviceFile::ClearError: failure on backup device ‘VDI_ DeviceID ‘. Operating system error 995(The I/O operation has
been aborted because of either a thread exit or an application request.).

Error message 2
Error: 18210, Severity: 16, State: 1.
BackupMedium::ReportIoError: write failure on backup device ‘VDI_ DeviceID ‘. Operating system error 995(The I/O operation has been aborted because of either a thread exit or an application request.)

Error message 3
Error: 18210, Severity: 16, State: 1. 
BackupVirtualDeviceFile::RequestDurableMedia: Flush failure on backup device ‘VDI_ DeviceID. Operating system error 995(The I/O operation has been aborted because of either a thread exit or an application request.)

The above errors are mostly due to outdated versions of SQLVDI.DLL on SQL Server 2000 or SQL Server 2005 instances. The “Validate VDI Installation” option in the Backup Simulator should be able to identify any known issues with DLL version mismatch for you.

If you have an application that uses Volume Shadow Service to backup your SQL database and that backup fails, then you your troubleshooting steps would be a bit different. The tell-tale sign of a VSS Snapshot backup is in the I/O Frozen message being written into the SQL Errorlogs for the databases being backed up. In such a failure scenario, take a backup of the database using Windows Server Backup Admin (Windows Server 2008 and above) or NTBackup utility to perform a backup of the database files involved. If this backup is successful, it means that a snapshot backup is successfully completing for the database. Now depending on your backup application’s implementation logic, this might be a resource crunch or a backup storage media incompatibility or even a resource crunch.

Common errors associated with VSS backups:

Issue# 1
Error: 3041, Severity: 16, State: 1.
Backup      BACKUP failed to complete the command BACKUP DATABASE <database name>. Check the backup application log for detailed messages.
SubprocessMgr::EnqueueSubprocess: Limit on ‘Max worker threads’ reached.
This error message is raised when your backup application uses VSS to backup a large number of databases simultaneously. More information around this can be found in this post Volume Shadow barfs with 0x80040e14 code

Issue #2
While performing a Bare Metal backup you might run into issues if your SQL Server binaries are located on a different drive other than the C: drive. More information on the same is mentioned here: Location of SQL Binaries can flip out Bare Metal backups

Issue #3

Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    VSS
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    6005
Description:
Sqllib error: Database %1 is stored on multiple volumes, only some of which are being shadowed.

The above error occurs when you backup only one of the volumes that contains SQL database data/log files which are spread over multiple volumes. This is explained in detailed in this post: Why is VSS complaining about SQL Data files

More information on how VSS/VDI work is present in the blog post by Sudarshan: INFORMATIONAL- SHEDDING LIGHT on VSS & VDI Backups in SQL Server

Previous posts related to Volume Shadow Backups
IO Frozen messages while taking NT Backup for SQL databases

Previous posts related to VDI backups
SQL VDI backup fails with 0×80770007