The VSS Writer Is in a Bad State

A backup fails out or gives a warning saying "Failed to create a snapshot for the local volumes ___" or something similar. Shortly afterward, in the backup job log, is a message saying "The VSS writer ___ is in a bad state."

These errors either prevent the backup job from completing all tasks successfully or cause the backup job to fail right away. This error may occur every time the backup runs or may occur sporadically.

Explanation

When Microsoft's Volume Shadow Copy service creates the shadow copies for a backup job, the VSS writers are involved in preparing their respective data for that process. If they cannot do this, the resulting shadow copy will be incomplete or inconsistent and will not be usable in the backup job.

In order for the backup to complete successfully, the shadow copy of volumes you intended to backup must be made which, in this case, may mean correcting the failed writer.

If the last error for a failed VSS writer is "Waiting for completion," this does not mean the writer is inoperable. Generally, this error is innocuous and does not usually prevent shadow copies from being made.

Resolution

As with any VSS issue, it is first recommended you attempt to track down the VSS failure to either a "VSS" or "volsnap" error in the Application or System logs in Event Viewer, respectively. These events will more accurately reflect the nature of the VSS failure and allow you to troubleshoot the problem more effectively.

If you are unable to resolve VSS issues using the resources we provide, it is recommended you contact Microsoft Support. Intronis can suggest resolution steps for fixing VSS but, ultimately, it is a Microsoft product. We cannot guarantee to fix all VSS issues.

VSS writers may malfunction for any number of reasons, however, generally you can fix them by either restarting the service corresponding to the writer or rebooting the machine. To find out which VSS writers are in non-stable states, use the following command in an elevated command prompt:

vssadmin list writers

This should list the writer names, states, and last error. If any writer's state is something besides "[1] Stable" then you may need to refresh that writer. To do this, first try restarting the service corresponding to the writer. Below is a list of common VSS writers and their respective services (this list is not exhaustive):

VSS Writer	Service Name	Service Display Name

VSS Writer	Service Name	Service Display Name
ASR Writer	VSS	Volume Shadow Copy
BITS Writer	BITS	Background Intelligent Transfer Service
COM+ REGDB Writer	VSS	Volume Shadow Copy
DFS Replication Service Writer	DFSR	DFS Replication
DHCP Jet Writer	DHCPServer	DHCP Server
FRS Writer	NtFrs	File Replication
FSRM Writer	srmsvc	File Server Resource Manager
IIS Config Writer	AppHostSvc	Application Host Helper Service
IIS Metabase Writer	SYSADMIN	IIS Admin Service
Microsoft Exchange Writer	MSExchangeIS	Microsoft Exchange Information Store
Microsoft Hyper-V VSS Writer	vmms	Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management
MSMQ Writer (MSMQ)	MSMQ	Message Queuing
MSSearch Service Writer	WSearch	Windows Search
NPS VSS Writer	EventSystem	COM+ Event System
NTDS	NTDS	Active Directory Domain Services
OSearch VSS Writer	OSearch	Office SharePoint Server Search
OSearch14 VSS Writer	OSearch14	SharePoint Server Search 14
Registry Writer	VSS	Volume Shadow Copy
Shadow Copy Optimization Writer	VSS	Volume Shadow Copy
SPSearch VSS Writer	SPSearch	Windows SharePoint Services Search
SPSearch4 VSS Writer	SPSearch4	SharePoint Foundation Search V4
SqlServerWriter	SQLWriter	SQL Server VSS Writer
System Writer	CryptSvc	Cryptographic Services
TermServLicensing	TermServLicensing	Remote Desktop Licensing
WIDW Writer	WIDWriter	Windows Internal Database
WINS Jet Writer	WINS	Windows Internet Name Service (WINS)
WMI Writer	Winmgmt	Windows Management Instrumentation

For additional information, refer to:

https://campus.barracuda.com/product/backup/doc/96021372/troubleshooting-vss/?sl=AYSBghdbIZjQH5EspRBA&so=1#h4_c0b64377