Unable to release guest error vsscontrol failed to freeze guest over network wait timeout

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VSSControl: Failed to freeze guest over network, wait timeou

VSSControl: Failed to freeze guest over network, wait timeou

Post by trackstar » Jul 14, 2018 5:12 am this post

We just updated to 9.5U3 earlier this week and noticed the frequency of the backup on Exchange 2010 failing with this error. Yes, we have experienced this issue in the past with previous versions of Veeam and made modification to the Veeam server & DAG registries.

Is there anything that I am missing here? Is the new version bypassing the registries timeout, etc?

Re: VSSControl: Failed to freeze guest over network, wait ti

Post by PTide » Jul 14, 2018 11:48 am this post

There exist two very similar, but not related error. Does the error message ends with some timeout value, or it is just cut after «timeout»? If the latter, then kindly check this KB.

Re: VSSControl: Failed to freeze guest over network, wait ti

Post by trackstar » Jul 15, 2018 2:56 pm this post

There exist two very similar, but not related error. Does the error message ends with some timeout value, or it is just cut after «timeout»? If the latter, then kindly check this KB.

Re: VSSControl: Failed to freeze guest over network, wait ti

Post by PTide » Jul 16, 2018 11:42 am this post

If so then proceed to the article that I’ve gave you the link to, please.

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VSS Timeout when backing up Exchange VM

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Challenge

The backup of an Exchange server VM fails with:

If you run the command ‘vssadmin list writers’ on the Exchange server after the job fails, typically you will see an Exchange Writer has failed because of a timeout error (error code 9).

Cause

Starting in Veeam Backup & Replication v8
To overcome this VSS limitation, Veeam Backup & Replication utilizes the Microsoft VSS persistent snapshots technology for backup of Microsoft Exchange VMs. If Microsoft Exchange fails to be frozen within the allowed period of time, Veeam Backup & Replication automatically fails over to the persistent snapshot mechanism. To learn more about this new feature please read:
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/persistent_snapshots.html

«VSSControl: Failed to freeze guest, wait timeout»

Refers to the limit imposed by Microsoft VSS writers on the duration of a freeze. This timeout is not configurable. Veeam uses VSS to freeze applications immediately prior to creating the VMware snapshot, and then sends the thaw command as soon as snapshot creation is complete. VSS will only hold a freeze on the writers for up to 60 seconds (20 for Exchange), so several steps must fit within this timeframe:

1. Verification of freeze state 1
2. Snapshot creation request via VIM API 2
3. Snapshot creation on the ESXi host
4. Return of snapshot information via VIM API 2
5. Thaw request to Microsoft VSS 1
6. Thawing of VSS writers’ I/O

1 If a network connection to the guest OS is not available, VIX API will be used, which introduces additional latency.
2 These steps should usually be near-instantaneous, but if the vCenter is heavily loaded or has a high latency to the ESXi hosts, the delay may be significant.

Solution

This issue is an infrastructure issue that can be difficult to narrow down. The following is a comprehensive list of resolutions that customers have used to resolve the issue:

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Veeam SQL Backup Unable to release guest. Error: VSSControl: Failed to freeze guest, wait timeout

Written by Allen White on November 21, 2013 . Posted in Veeam

A client of mine recently built a new SQL server and added the SQL server to the Veeam Backup job. When running the backup the new SQL server would fail when backing up with the following error.

The client was running version 6.5 and was eligible for an upgrade to 7 so I carried out the upgrade of veeam 6.5 to 7. Unfortunately this did not resolve the issue. On the SQL server I wanted to check the status of the SQL VSS Writer which Veeam uses to freeze the DB, to do so I issued this command at command line on the SQL server.

This showed me that the SQL Writer was in a timed out status. Now im not an SQL guru bu any stretch of the imagination, however after doing a bit of research I found that sometimes when the account you use in Veeam does not have access to the SQL instance then you may get this issue.

To resolve I opened up Services.msc on the SQL server, located the SQL Server VSS Writer and set the log on account to be the local admin account on the SQL server.

I then restarted the service and ran.

I then went back to my Veeam server and ran the SQL job again. Success. Thanks to my colleague Stephen Morrison for help getting through this issue.

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VSS wait timeout

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Challenge

Either of the following errors occurs in the job statistics:

Cause

These errors look similar but their causes are unrelated.

Refers to VSS preparation, which consists largely of enumerating VSS writers, their components, and associated files and volumes. The timeout may be exceeded because of performance limitations of the VM guest, or because a specific writer is enumerating a very large number of files. This timeout is configurable.

Refers to the limit imposed by Microsoft VSS writers on the duration of a freeze. This timeout is not configurable. Veeam uses VSS to freeze applications immediately prior to creating the VMware snapshot, and then sends the thaw command as soon as snapshot creation is complete. VSS will only hold a freeze on the writers for up to 60 seconds (20 for Exchange), so several steps must fit within this timeframe:

1. Verification of freeze state 1
2. Snapshot creation request via VIM API 2
3. Snapshot creation on the ESXi host
4. Return of snapshot information via VIM API 2
5. Thaw request to Microsoft VSS 1
6. Thawing of VSS writers’ I/O

1 If a network connection to the guest OS is not available, VIX API will be used, which introduces additional latency.
2 These steps should usually be near-instantaneous, but if the vCenter is heavily loaded or has a high latency to the ESXi hosts, the delay may be significant.

Solution

Review the relevant section below:

• Improving in-guest performance will help in resolving either error.
• Anti-Virus software may also impede VSS operations. As an isolation step, consider temporarily uninstalling the Anti-Virus, rebooting, and rerunning the Veeam job. A complete uninstall is necessary as simply disabling some anti-virus solutions may still leave components active. (AV Exclusions)

Failed to prepare guest for freeze, wait timeout 900 sec.

You can change this timeout by modifying the value in the registry of the server where Veeam Backup & Replication is installed as follows:

1. Go to registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREVeeamVeeam Backup and Replication
2. Add a DWORD (32-bit) value named VssPreparationTimeout. The value is in milliseconds (decimal), the default timeout is 900000, which equals 15 minutes. Set the value to 1800000. This will change the timeout to 30 minutes.
3. Stop any running jobs or wait for them to complete, then restart the Veeam Backup Service.

• Certain configurations (such as MS SQL Server with FILESTREAM) or third-party VSS writers may require significant time for preparation. The timeout can be extended to several hours.
• On Exchange servers, this error typically indicates a large number of transaction logs. You can increase the timeout or truncate the logs by another method. Compare the dates on the transaction logs to the date of the last successful Veeam backup to verify transaction logs are being truncated correctly.
• On SharePoint servers, you may need to run PSCONFIG. For more info see Potential issues after installing SharePoint Foundation 2010 SP1. Unusual search scopes have also sometimes been implicated.

Identification of Problem Writer:

• Collect the logs in KB1789 and provide them when opening a technical support case.
• Alternatively, use the Diskshadow utility from an administrator command prompt within the VM guest OS.
  The output file will contain a list of files associated with each writer. If a particular writer has a very large number of associated files, it is probably the culprit.

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Technical discussions about Veeam products and related data center technologies

VSS Timeout — SQL Server

VSS Timeout — SQL Server

Post by Strecker25 » Mar 04, 2016 2:24 am this post

case number 01715800

Hi, we’re having issues doing application aware processing on some of our SQL servers. Veeam support is saying to contact MS, but we do not have unlimited support and I do not want to open a case for every SQL backup failure. The veeam console has these errors

3/3/2016 9:16:43 PM :: Unable to release guest. Error: VSSControl: Failed to freeze guest, wait timeout

even though our timeout is set on the Veeam server for 1 hour. If I run the diskshadow utility and manually do begin backup, create I have no issues and no errors. The backup process completes sucesfully. When Veeam triggers it, howeever, the VSS writers go into failed state for Timeout and the backup fails. The following logs are written to the application event log.

Sqllib error: OLEDB Error encountered calling ICommandText::Execute. hr = 0x80040e14. SQLSTATE: 42000, Native Error: 3013
Error state: 1, Severity: 16
Source: Microsoft SQL Server Native Client 11.0
Error message: BACKUP DATABASE is terminating abnormally.
SQLSTATE: 42000, Native Error: 3271
Error state: 1, Severity: 16
Source: Microsoft SQL Server Native Client 11.0
Error message: A nonrecoverable I/O error occurred on file «<204b6457-1678-496b-92aa-29b23ee85147>3:» 995(The I/O operation has been aborted because of either a thread exit or an application request.).

Also, this is a brand new server and a fresh install of sql 2014. There is basically no data on the server, and it is not under any load.

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Vssadmin list writers

net stop vss
net start vss

Search

Example

«Unable to release guest. Error: VSSControl: Failed to freeze guest over Hypervisor API, wait timeout
Error: VSSControl: Failed to freeze guest over Hypervisor API, wait timeout.«

«Failed to prepare guest for hot backup. Error: VSSControl: 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: [{}]. Instance ID: [{}]. Writer’s state: [VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_FREEZE]. Error code: [].
Error: VSSControl: 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: [{}]. Instance ID: [{}]. Writer’s state: [VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_FREEZE]. Error code: [].»

Threshold

Errors occurred during Microsoft VSS Processing.

Summary

During the application aware processing there was an issue with Microsoft Volume Shadow Service processing the data on the system.

Solution

Typically a reboot of the target virtual machine will resolve most issues.

Check Event Viewer on the machine for any Volume Shady Copy related issues and resolve.

Below are some typical issues that you might run into.

I’m doing some «charity» work for an old fellow who could really use it. He’s hard a pretty hard run of it these past few years, he was diagnosed with cancer some time back and while he’s in remission the treatment and toll on his life was very expensive and he needed to borrow a significant amount of money from a friend. He’s old, but refuses to stop working until he can pay him back, but understandably doesn’t have money to play with.

He has an old HP ML370 G5, running VMware ESXi. He had an old SBS 2008 instance running most things but this was slowly but surely dying, along with an old Server 2003 VM running a couple of LOB apps he still needs. I’ve migrated his emails up to a single O365 mailbox as that’s about all he could afford, and I’ve used a spare 2012 R2 license to set up a new DC and have decommissioned SBS 2008 (thank god).

All is running great, but I needed to set up as good a backup solution as possible without costing him anything — naturally went for Veeam B&R Community Edition. The issue I’m having is with the machine itself (DC) having Veeam running on it is having issues backing up itself. I know this is not an ideal configuration, but he cannot afford another Windows Server license and while I’m happy gifting him my time I obviously can’t go gifting Windows licenses. When the backup is preparing the VM I get the message «Unable to release guest. Error: VSSControl: Failed to freeze guest over network, wait timeout». I’ve obviously done my research and found a number of posts online but have yet to find a solution for this setup. Here’s what I’ve tried.

• Tested Windows Server Backup: Works fine, no issues taking snapshot.

• VMware snapshots: Snapshot including memory does take quite a long time (probably 2-3 minutes) to create but no obvious issues outside that.

• vssadmin list writers shows a number of failed providers after the backup attempts to run and fails.

Event viewer shows a number of errors for the Veeam SQL instance when the backup is attempted, so I’m drawn to thinking that’s the primary thing that’s causing the issue, although if that was the case I’d have thought Windows Server Backup would exhibit the same issues which it doesn’t. The errors in the events are like so:

• Source: SQLVDI, Event ID: 1, Message: SQLVDI: Loc=SignalAbort. Desc=Client initiates abort. ErrorCode=(0). Process=2468. Thread=7548. Client. Instance=VEEAMSQL2016. VD=Global{4F3D6231-3E24-4655-8764-615D515115ED}1_SQLVDIMemoryName_0.

• Source: MSSQL$VEEAMSQL2016, Event ID: 3041, Message: BACKUP failed to complete the command BACKUP DATABASE model. Check the backup application log for detailed messages.

If I turn off application-aware processing the backup runs without issue, would like to avoid this of course.

Not sure how much support I can get from Veeam themselves when using the Community edition especially at this time of year, so am really hoping somebody can point me in the right direction.