Backup casues Windows Server 2008 to hang
I've recently installed a new 2008 server in a virtual environment and I'm now having problems backing it up. During the backup of files on the data drive, the system hangs and becomes completely unresponsive. The only was to get it back up and running is to reset the server.
Having spent 2 hours on the phone to Symantec this morning, we've ascertained that the VSS component of Server 2008 appears to be at fault. We've arrived at this conclusion as the server also freezes when carrying out a Windows Server Backup which, in my book, means that Backup Exec is out of the equation.
Does anyone have any experience or ideas about this before I try logging a call with Microsoft? Could it be something to do with it being a virtual server, i.e. might it be that the disk can't grow quickly enough to create the Shadow Copy?
Thanks for any help
Having spent 2 hours on the phone to Symantec this morning, we've ascertained that the VSS component of Server 2008 appears to be at fault. We've arrived at this conclusion as the server also freezes when carrying out a Windows Server Backup which, in my book, means that Backup Exec is out of the equation.
Does anyone have any experience or ideas about this before I try logging a call with Microsoft? Could it be something to do with it being a virtual server, i.e. might it be that the disk can't grow quickly enough to create the Shadow Copy?
Thanks for any help
Do you have Symantec Endpoint installed on the server?
ASKER
No I'm afraid not - it's got Sophos on but it's not running any On Access scanning.
Go to your local area connection properties click Configure then go to the advanced tab disable IP Checksum, TCP Checksum, & TCP Large Send Offload. This should fix your issue. Make sure you do this on only the phyiscal NICs.
ASKER
Hi Dariusq, thanks for your help with this.
The nearest settings I could find to your advice were:
"Large Send Offload", "Offload Receive IP Checksum", "Offload Transmit IP Checksum", "Offload Receive TCP Checksum" and "Offload Transmit TCP Checksum" (screenshot attached).
Having disabled all of these, the virtual guest became unavailable and the Virtual Server reported "Virtual Server could not open its emulated Ethernet switch driver. To fix this problem, re-enable the Virtual Server Emulated Ethernet Switch service on the "HP NC360T PCIe DP Gigabit Server Adapter #2" adapter or reinstall Virtual Server."
Have I misunderstood and done something stupid?
screenshot.JPG
The nearest settings I could find to your advice were:
"Large Send Offload", "Offload Receive IP Checksum", "Offload Transmit IP Checksum", "Offload Receive TCP Checksum" and "Offload Transmit TCP Checksum" (screenshot attached).
Having disabled all of these, the virtual guest became unavailable and the Virtual Server reported "Virtual Server could not open its emulated Ethernet switch driver. To fix this problem, re-enable the Virtual Server Emulated Ethernet Switch service on the "HP NC360T PCIe DP Gigabit Server Adapter #2" adapter or reinstall Virtual Server."
Have I misunderstood and done something stupid?
screenshot.JPG
ASKER
Thanks,
The last article (checking/unchecking the tick box for "Virtual Machine Network Services") resolved the "emulated ethernet switch" error. However, the original problem is still there. I'll be away for a couple of weeks now but will update when I return (if I've made any progress).
K
The last article (checking/unchecking the tick box for "Virtual Machine Network Services") resolved the "emulated ethernet switch" error. However, the original problem is still there. I'll be away for a couple of weeks now but will update when I return (if I've made any progress).
K
Go into the VM and uncheck these items on the VM NIC. I haven't tried that yet.
ASKER
Thanks for the response, I'll try that today and update later on progress.
K
K
ASKER
Ah, small problem, those settings don't exist in the VM. I'll keep you posted.
K
K
ASKER
Still no success here - a trial run of the backup today using Windows Server Backup also caused the server to hang. I'm not getiing anything in the event log on either the host or guest at the point when the failure occurs.
Can anybody else offer any advice?
Can anybody else offer any advice?
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ASKER
Thanks again for the reply dariusq.
Looking over the links you sent and various other bits on the web it would appear that I've been kidding myself on about Server 2008 support in Virtual Server. I'd told myself that 2005 R2 SP1 supported it and now I'm not so sure as I've found mention of KB948515 needing to be installed to provide support. I'll apply this patch tonight and see if it helps.
Cheers for the help
K
Looking over the links you sent and various other bits on the web it would appear that I've been kidding myself on about Server 2008 support in Virtual Server. I'd told myself that 2005 R2 SP1 supported it and now I'm not so sure as I've found mention of KB948515 needing to be installed to provide support. I'll apply this patch tonight and see if it helps.
Cheers for the help
K
ASKER
The patch hasn't helped.
I'm going to spend the weekend building a Hyper-V server and moving the VM to that box. If that fixes the problem then I'll just replace the virtual server with a 2008 box.
If it DOESN'T then I think I'm at the point where I'm going to have to rebuild that VM. NOT something I'm looking forward to but it looks like either way I've got a couple of weekends of work ahead of me. Oh joy.
Again, I'll post back on progress with this one.
I'm going to spend the weekend building a Hyper-V server and moving the VM to that box. If that fixes the problem then I'll just replace the virtual server with a 2008 box.
If it DOESN'T then I think I'm at the point where I'm going to have to rebuild that VM. NOT something I'm looking forward to but it looks like either way I've got a couple of weekends of work ahead of me. Oh joy.
Again, I'll post back on progress with this one.
Did you do the command prompt install?
ASKER
No, the host OS is Server 2003 so I'm not sure that I needed to.
I have however noticed today that the patch has provided an upgrade to Virtual Machine Additions (from 13.813 to 13.820) so I'll apply that tonight, try another test backup, and hopefully avoid a weekend's work!
I have however noticed today that the patch has provided an upgrade to Virtual Machine Additions (from 13.813 to 13.820) so I'll apply that tonight, try another test backup, and hopefully avoid a weekend's work!
ASKER
Sorry, should have been clear about that from the start it's...
HOST - Windows Server 2003 Enterprise running Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 (now with KB948515 as well)
GUEST - Windows Server 2008 Std SP1
HOST - Windows Server 2003 Enterprise running Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 (now with KB948515 as well)
GUEST - Windows Server 2008 Std SP1
ASKER
My apologies for the delay in getting back on this - I've been a bit busy.
Essentially, it would seem that an upgrade to Virtual Machine Additions V 13.820 followed by a reboot of the guest server has resolved the problem.
My thanks to you dariusq for setting me on the right path!
K
Essentially, it would seem that an upgrade to Virtual Machine Additions V 13.820 followed by a reboot of the guest server has resolved the problem.
My thanks to you dariusq for setting me on the right path!
K
ASKER
...and, the day after I post to say that it's fixed it happens again. *sigh*
What was the FIX you never really mentioned how you resolved the problem. Can you elaborate.
ASKER
There never was a proper fix in the end. After all of the suggested fixes regarding network settings, the last process I tried was installing patch KB948515 and then re-installing VM Additions on the virtual machine. Initially this seemed to work - that was why I accepted dariusq's answer as it was from his answer that I discovered the patch. However, about 8 days later it went wrong again.
In the end I did some work out of hours and fixed the problem by upgrading the host machine to Server 2008 x64 and using Hyper-V to run the virtual servers. Haven't had the same problem since.
K
In the end I did some work out of hours and fixed the problem by upgrading the host machine to Server 2008 x64 and using Hyper-V to run the virtual servers. Haven't had the same problem since.
K
ASKER