Volume Shadow Copy backups randomly fail

[Frederik Hellyn 0]

Hi, our VEEAM 9.5 backups started randomly failing the past weeks and I've checked with our support company, they think it is because of a recently discovered Microsoft VSS issue: 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4460135/making-vss-shadow-copy-fails-with-vss-ws-failed-at-freeze-error

They told me they have the same issue with other customers using Sophos AV and pointed me to this knowledge base article: https://community.sophos.com/kb/en-us/132691

Our servers have Eset File Server Security 7 (the latest .18 release) and all Windows updates.  I have the issue on both Windows 2008R2 and 2012, mostly on servers hosting databases.  Could it be related to the Microsoft VSS problem and if yes, is there a solution or workaround?

Many thx, Frederik

[Marcos 5,074]

Never seen such issue reported by our users. We don't write to the registry a lot; basically it's only information about modules and settings written to the registry, if changed. Are you reproduce it by manually triggering backups several times in a row? If so, then you could try temporarily uninstalling ESET and see if the issue occurs even without ESET.

[Frederik Hellyn 0]

Hi Marcos, thanks for your quick reply!  When I start the backup jobs manually and separately they mostly succeed so I can't really reproduce the issue.  I have remove the antvirus from one of the database servers and will let you know the outcome tomorrow!

[Frederik Hellyn 0]

Okay I have removed the antivirus from one DB server and upgraded all the other Eset File Security installs to version 7.0.12018.0 (including the instances on our VEEAM servers) which is I think the latest.  All backups seem to be running okay now!  🙂

I will reinstall the AV on the DB server and keep an eye on it, but I think my issues are resolved but updating from 7.0.12016.0 tot 18.0!