Veritas System Recovery: General VSS errors and workarounds

Problem

Backup jobs fail with VSS Snapshot errors, such as the following:

• The Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) snapshot provider selected returned: "Unexpected provider error".  Ensure that all provider services are enabled and can be started. Check the Windows Event Viewer for details.
  You might see other errors related to VSS Snapshot. A list of VSS Error Codes is available at the following URL:
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa381603(v=vs.85).aspx
• Error E4F3000E: Snapshot failure while using Volume Shadow Copy Service. Please check application event log for VSS errors. Error code: EndCreateSnapshotSet(-2147212300).

 UMI: V-281-3215-6071

Error Message

• The Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) snapshot provider selected returned: "Unexpected provider error".  Ensure that all provider services are enabled and can be started. Check the Windows Event Viewer for details.
  You might see other errors related to VSS Snapshot. A list of VSS Error Codes is available at the following URL:
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa381603(v=vs.85).aspx
• Error E4F3000E: Snapshot failure while using Volume Shadow Copy Service. Please check application event log for VSS errors. Error code: EndCreateSnapshotSet(-2147212300).

Cause

VSS Snapshot errors might occur due to various reasons, such as Microsoft VSS is not registered properly with the operating system, Shadow Copy Association for the volume is corrupt, misconfigured, or  other environmental factors.

Solution

Do the following:

• Reboot the machine. Sometimes a reboot is enough to reset the VSS framework. 
• Open a command prompt with administrator rights, and type VSSADMIN LIST WRITERS. Ensure that the writers are stable.
• Ensure that the Microsoft VSS services are not 'disabled'. Manually start VSS, This should start without any errors. 
• Ensure that all VSS writers are in stable state condition. Do this by opening a command prompt with administrative permissions. At the prompt, type VSSADMIN LIST WRITERS. All writers should be stable. 
• Ensure that the various Application VSS Writer services can be started in the services console without any errors.
• Resize the VSS shadow storage using vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage command. The command should be run as an Administrator. Following are a few examples:
  • vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=C: /On=C: /MaxSize=900MB
  • vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=C: /On=C: /MaxSize=UNBOUNDED
  • vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=C: /On=C: /MaxSize=20%
• Resize the VSS shadow storage for System Reserved and Windows Recovery Environment partitions (if they exist), for example:
  vssadmin resize ShadowStorage /For=\\?\Volume{a309c667-5a3f-4718-9d4b-e128827866eb} /On=\\?\Volume{a309c667-5a3f-4718-9d4b-e128827866eb} /MaxSize=UNBOUNDED.
  You can find the volume GUID by running “mountvol” command. Alternatively, you can assign a drive letter to the hidden volume and do the shadow storage resize using the commands explained in the previous point.
• Delete all the existing shadow copies using the following command:
  vssadmin delete shadows /all
• Open a command prompt with administrator privileges and run SFC / SCANNOW to scan for and restore corruptions in Windows system files.