Troubleshooting VSS backup and restore operations

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If you encounter a problem during VSS backup and restore processing, attempt to reproduce the problem in your environment.

Before you begin
If a VSS backup fails, verify that sufficient disk space is available to store the snapshot.
About this task
Procedure
  1. Try the operation that failed again.
  2. Restart the IBM Storage Protect services, including the IBM Storage Protect Client Acceptor and the IBM Storage Protect Remote Client Agent.
  3. If the problem still exists, close other applications, especially those applications, for example antivirus applications, that interact with Exchange Server, SQL Server, or file systems. Retry the operation that failed.
  4. If the problem persists, look for information in the event logs: tdpexc.log, tdpsql.log, and baclient\dsmerror.log.
    You can also review the messages in the Windows System and Application Event Log. Log entries might exist to help you identify the VSS event that triggers the issue.
  5. If you do not find a resolution to the problem in the log files, complete the following steps:
    1. Restart the Exchange or SQL Server or the computer.
    2. Run the operation that failed.

Failovers from VSS instant restore processing to VSS fast restore processing

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If an error occurs early in a VSS instant restore operation, the error might cause the stystem to fail over to VSS fast restore processing. However, if an errors occurs later in the instant restore operation, instant restore processing might fail without failing over to fast restore processing.

About this task
Errors in VSS instant restore operations might occur, for example, if the volume where the restored database is stored is used by another process.
Procedure
Check the error message in the dsmerror.log file.

Troubleshooting file system and custom application VSS restores from IBM Storage Protect server

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File system and custom application VSS restores from IBM Storage Protect server are volume image-level restore operations. This type of restore operation might cause the shadow copies, which are created with a system provider for the volume that is being restored, to become invalid and be deleted.

About this task
This issue occurs when the shadow storage for the volume is located within the volume. During the volume image-level restore operation, the shadow storage data is overwritten and the shadow copies are invalidated.
Procedure
Allocate the shadow storage on a different volume.
For example, with the vssadmin tool, use the Add ShadowStorage command: 
vssadmin Add ShadowStorage /For=D: /On=F: /MaxSize=your size

Troubleshooting issues with SQL Server tail-log backups

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A database restore operation might fail if transaction log records in the tail of the log are not backed up.

About this task
During the restore operation, you might see the following error message: 
Failed - An exception occurred while executing a Transact-SQL statement 
or batch.
The tail-log backup of the dbName database has not been backed up.
Use BACKUP LOG WITH NORECOVERY to backup the log if it contains work you 
do not want to lose.
Use the WITH REPLACE or WITH STOPAT clause of the RESTORE statement to 
overwrite the contents of the log.

RESTORE DATABASE is terminating abnormally.
Changed database context to 'master'. (HRESULT:0x80131501)
To resolve the error, complete the tail-log backup.
Procedure
  1. On the Protect tab of the SQL instance, click Show Backup Options and set the Back Up Tail-log option to True.
  2. On the Actions pane, select Log Backup to IBM Storage Protect.

Troubleshooting VSS offline restore of a master database

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Microsoft SQL Server only supports offline VSS restores of the master database. IBM Storage Protect Snapshot for SQL Server does not support offline restore operations. Therefore, you cannot use IBM Storage Protect Snapshot for SQL Server to restore the master database.

Procedure
  1. Ensure that the SQL Server is online.
  2. Restore the master database to a new database in Microsoft Management Console (MMC), or at the command line. For example: Enter the tdpsqlc command with the /recovery=no option.
  3. After the restore operation is complete, verify that all data files are restored successfully.
  4. Stop the SQL Server instance, and rename all data files of the master database.
  5. Copy all data files from the new master_restore database to the location of the master database. Verify that all data files are copied.
  6. Start the SQL Server instance and verify that the master database is restored successfully.
Related tasks

Troubleshooting VSS limitations with IBM SAN Volume Controller and IBM Storwize V7000

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When you run an IBM Storage Protect Snapshot for SQL Server VSS backup (non-offloaded) to an IBM Storage Protect server, the IBM® SAN Volume Controller or IBM Storwize V7000 LUNs can sometimes remain mapped to the Windows host even though the backup is complete.

Procedure
Use a backup destination other than IBM Storage Protect server (BOTH or LOCAL).
Results

When you run two IBM Storage Protect Snapshot for SQL Server VSS backups and if the volumes are large, or the background copy rate is set to a low number, or both conditions occur, the second VSS backup might be presented to be in a hang state. Typically, the Exchange Server data is on IBM SAN Volume Controller or IBM Storwize V7000 disks. However, the second backup is waiting for the IBM SAN Volume Controller or IBM Storwize V7000 background copy of the first backup to complete before proceeding. IBM SAN Volume Controller or IBM Storwize V7000 does not allow two background copies of the same volume to occur at the same time. You might not know that the second backup is waiting for the first background copy to complete.

You might also see timeout errors if the previous IBM SAN Volume Controller or IBM Storwize V7000 background copy takes too long.

What to do next
To resolve timeout issues, schedule VSS backups so that enough time elapses between backups, or increase the copy rate of the IBM SAN Volume Controller or IBM Storwize V7000 background copy.