Cannot access the Volume Shadow Copy Service .....

[dmalseed]

I have been successfully using FFS to do unattended backups of several PCs to a central server via the LAN - FFS is launched on the server (the target PC) by a scheduled task and I have a .cmd script that launches FFS batch jobs against each PC to be backed up (the source PCs) in turn.

However, I sometimes see the message in the log file:

Error: Cannot read file "\\Study-pc\D\Windows Live Mail\tmp.edb".
Error Code 32: The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process. (CopyFileEx)
Cannot access the Volume Shadow Copy Service.
Error calling "backupComp->AddToSnapshotSet": VSS_E_OBJECT_NOT_FOUND Volume: "\\?\UNC\Study-pc\D\"

In this instance, Windows Live Mail was active on the source PC and had the file "tmp.edb" locked.

However, I don't know what I need to do to allow FFS to access the Volume Shadow Copy Service on the source PCs? I have the service "Volume Shadow Service" set to "Automatic" and have confirmed that it is running on the source PC and that FFS is configured to "Run as Administrator" on the target PC.

Any suggestions will be much appreciated ...

[Zenju]

VSS_E_OBJECT_NOT_FOUND means that `\\?\UNC\Study-pc\D\` does not correspond to an existing volume or remote file share. Is this the case? What is the volume that `\\Study-pc\D\Windows Live Mail\tmp.edb` is located on?

[dmalseed]

Thanks for your prompt reply, however, I am not sure that I understand your questions.

The PC that I am backing up from (the source PC) is "Study-PC" and it runs Windows 7.
The PC that I am running FFS on and backing up to (the target PC) is "Server" and it also runs Windows 7.

There are about 250,000 files to be compared and backed up and they are all located in folders on the "D:" drive of "Study-PC". FFS hapily compares and backs up all the 250,000 files except for the few that are locked by Windows Live Mail - that's when I get the error message in my previous post.

Now, to answer your questions:

*VSS_E_OBJECT_NOT_FOUND means that \\?\UNC\Study-pc\D\ does not correspond to an existing volume or remote file share. Is this the case?*
Given that FFS finds all the other Windows Live Mail files on "Study-PC" without error, I am guessing that \\?\UNC\Study-pc\D\ is fine?

*What is the volume that \\Study-pc\D\Windows Live Mail\tmp.edb is located on?*
I don't understand what you mean by "volume"? Do you mean the "D:" drive on "Study-PC"?

I apologise if my understanding of volumes or remote file shares is lacking, but I would really appreciate your help and advice.

Regards ...

[Zenju]

> I am guessing that \?\UNC\Study-pc\D\ is fine?

I would guess so, too, but VSS seems to have another opinion (VSS_E_OBJECT_NOT_FOUND), or an entierly different problem...

> I don't understand what you mean by "volume"?

I mean "volume" in the technical sense:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa364996%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

For example it's possible that `\\Study-pc\D\Windows Live Mail ` is a symlink to another volume which is not `\\Study-pc\D\`.
Or maybe VSS has problems with the UNC syntax `\\?\UNC\Study-pc\D\`. This could be tested by opening a second FFS session (*not* Windows Explorer) and enter the paths `\\?\UNC\Study-pc\D\` and `\\Study-pc\D\` to see if they can be traversed.
That's the "beauty" of error codes.. they leave everyone guessing what's going on, but at least VSS saves 1 kb of memory, that a normal error message would have "wasted".

[vitek159753]

Hi,

the same problem. Any idea what is wrong?

source NAS Open-E, samba sharing, path \\dss\db, problem only file (microsoft database) ddp.mdb, other files no problem

target localhost windows XP SP3, drive e:, path e:\dss_db

log:

10:34:49 Info Synchronising folder pair:
\\dss\db\
E:\dss_db\
10:34:49 Info Overwriting file "E:\dss_db\ddp.ldb"
10:34:50 Info Overwriting file "E:\dss_db\ddp.mdb"
10:34:52 Info Cannot read file "\\dss\db\ddp.mdb".
Error Code 32: Proces nemá přístup k souboru, neboť jej právě využívá jiný proces. (CreateFile)
Cannot access the Volume Shadow Copy Service.
Error calling "backupComp->AddToSnapshotSet": VSS_E_OBJECT_NOT_FOUND Volume: "\\dss\db\"
=> Automatic retry in 5 seconds...
10:34:57 Info Overwriting file "E:\dss_db\ddp.mdb"
10:34:59 Error Cannot read file "\\dss\db\ddp.mdb".
Error Code 32: Proces nemá přístup k souboru, neboť jej právě využívá jiný proces. (CreateFile)
Cannot access the Volume Shadow Copy Service.
Error calling "backupComp->AddToSnapshotSet": VSS_E_OBJECT_NOT_FOUND Volume: "\\dss\db\"
10:34:59 Info Overwriting file "E:\dss_db\vinyl.db"
10:35:11 Error Synchronisation completed with errors


ffs_batch attached