Troubleshooting on Writer Microsoft Hyper-V VSS Writer experienced some error during snapshot creation

[2022-06-29] As we consolidated all tech blogs into Dewapost website, we also post this blog into Dewapost.com and we reformat the content to suit within their guideline.

Challenge

After doing big Windows Updates, have this issue on Windows Backup issue (wbadmin) from one of the Hyper-V servers. Level: Warning Source: Backup Event ID: 519 Detail: The backup operation that started at '‎2017‎-‎07‎-‎12T08:00:02.682216900Z' has failed to back up the volume(s) ''. Please review the event details for a solution, and then rerun the backup operation once the issue is resolved. Level: Error Source: SPP Event ID: 16387 Detail: Writer Microsoft Hyper-V VSS Writer experienced some errors during snapshot creation.

Solution

The standard Windows Logs (Application and System) did not explain in detail. It needs to look at in other areas which is Applications and Service Logs / Microsoft / Windows / Hyper-V-XXXXXXX (ie. Integration / VMMS etc). Found this error under Hyper-V-VMMS/Admin which was recorded about the same time as previous logs: Level: Error Source: Hyper-V-VMMS Event ID: 18012 Detail: Checkpoint operation for 'xxAUxxxVAP03' failed. (Virtual machine ID 4BAF6B4B-D064-4178-B907-EC93ED5FCE01) Level: Error Source: Hyper-V-VMMS Event ID: 10150 Detail: Could not create backup checkpoint for virtual machine 'xxAUxxxVAP03': General access denied error (0x80070005). (Virtual machine ID 4BAF6B4B-D064-4178-B907-EC93ED5FCE01) Have a similar issue on the VM previously that was not booting at all. There was a missing permission "NT VIRTUAL MACHINE\[VM-GUID]" Go to each VM and noted down the GUID and in our case, this can be found in D:\Virtual Machines\xxAUSYDVAP03\Virtual Machines\4BAF6B4B-D064-4178-B907-EC93ED5FCE01.xml >>> This is GUID. Then run a command line:

C:\Users\Administrator>D:

D:\>DIR/W
 Volume in drive D is DATA
 Volume Serial Number is 920B-F52E

Directory of D:\

[Data]
 README.txt
 [Replica Targets]
 [Temp]
 [Virtual Machines]
 9 File(s) 19,778 bytes
 4 Dir(s) 366,725,373,952 bytes free

D:\>CD Virtual Machines

D:\Virtual Machines>DIR/W
 Volume in drive D is DATA
 Volume Serial Number is 920B-F52E

Directory of D:\Virtual Machines

[.] [..] [xxAUxxx058-VM] [xxAUxxxSQD01-VM]
 [xxAUxxxVAP03] [xxAUxxxWKS11-VM] [Win7_IE9]
 0 File(s) 0 bytes
 7 Dir(s) 366,725,373,952 bytes free

D:\Virtual Machines>icacls "D:\Virtual Machines\xxAUxxxVAP03" /T /grant "NT VIRT
 UAL MACHINE\4BAF6B4B-D064-4178-B907-EC93ED5FCE01":(F)
 processed file: D:\Virtual Machines\xxAUxxxVAP03
 processed file: D:\Virtual Machines\xxAUxxxVAP03\Snapshots
 processed file: D:\Virtual Machines\xxAUxxxVAP03\Virtual Hard Disks
 processed file: D:\Virtual Machines\xxAUxxxVAP03\Virtual Machines
 processed file: D:\Virtual Machines\xxAUxxxVAP03\Virtual Hard Disks\xxAUxxxVAP03
 _FF4B03BE-F5AE-4ACB-9C17-8CBBE4BCDB34.hrl
 processed file: D:\Virtual Machines\xxAUxxxVAP03\Virtual Hard Disks\xxAUxxxAP03
 _OS.vhdx
 processed file: D:\Virtual Machines\xxAUxxxVAP03\Virtual Machines\4BAF6B4B-D064-
 4178-B907-EC93ED5FCE01
 processed file: D:\Virtual Machines\xxAUxxxVAP03\Virtual Machines\4BAF6B4B-D064-
 4178-B907-EC93ED5FCE01.xml
 processed file: D:\Virtual Machines\xxAUxxxVAP03\Virtual Machines\4BAF6B4B-D064-
 4178-B907-EC93ED5FCE01\4BAF6B4B-D064-4178-B907-EC93ED5FCE01.bin
 processed file: D:\Virtual Machines\xxAUxxxVAP03\Virtual Machines\4BAF6B4B-D064-
 4178-B907-EC93ED5FCE01\4BAF6B4B-D064-4178-B907-EC93ED5FCE01.vsv
 Successfully processed 10 files; Failed processing 0 files

Run the Windows Backup again and it should work now. Happy troubleshooting!

Environment

* 2 nodes running on Windows Server 2012 R2. We are running cross-over VM replication between these 2 nodes. Each node has its own storage - no SAN. * The Hyper-V and VM backups are pointing to a USB portable device. * USB portable device is a part of Disk 2 Basic appearing in Disk Management (Disk 0: primary physical disk partition, Disk 1: Mini disk storage - 18GB)