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Symptoms



SQL backup fails with:

INFO    Thu 14 Feb 2019 02:20:50 MST    2    [10.96.12.70] Getting writer status    
INFO    Thu 14 Feb 2019 02:21:02 MST    2    [10.96.12.70] VSS backup complete    
ERROR   Thu 14 Feb 2019 02:21:23 MST    2    Snapshot failed. e=com.syncsort.dp.xsb.commons.XSBException: Failed to do snapshot  
 

ERROR   Thu 14 Feb 2019 02:21:25 MST    2    Database snapshot failed: Writer error reported  cancel backup    
INFO    Thu 14 Feb 2019 02:21:25 MST    2    Canceling async volume snapshots    
ERROR   Thu 14 Feb 2019 02:21:25 MST    2    Database protection failed.    
ERROR   Thu 14 Feb 2019 02:21:43 MST    2    Failed to protect the following databases. Total unprotected databases 1 
   


Application event log from SQL Server contains: 

Error,2/12/2019 9:04:58 PM,MSSQLSERVER,18210,Server,BackupVirtualDeviceFile::SendFileInfoBegin: failure on backup device '{C309555F-8B73-4725-9890-BDA050ACBBDF}1'. Operating system error 995(The I/O operation has been aborted because of either a thread exit or an application request.).

Release[0x80042314, The shadow copy provider timed out while holding writes to the volume being shadow copied. This is probably due to excessive activity on the volume by an application or a system service. Try again later when activity on the volume is reduced.
 

 
 


Resolution



The main problem was a communication delay between the SQL Server being backed up and the ECX Appliance.  VSS Hardware  provider snapshots are limited by design 10 seconds if the process takes longer than 10 seconds the SQL backup will fail with the above errors.

The 10 second delay can be caused by multiple factors including the following
  1. SQL Server firewall is blocked port 80 communication  -  Issue was resolved by opening port 80.
  2. SSL Certificate verification issues 
Related Products: ECX