Event ID 12301 — VSS Writer Operations

Applies To: Windows Server 2008 R2

Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) writers are applications or services that store persistent information in files on disk and that provide the names and locations of these files to requesters by using the shadow copy interface.

Event Details

Resolve

Use VssAdmin to determine the cause of the error condition and then take appropriate action

This event indicates that a Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) writer did not respond to a request from the VSS service.

To troubleshoot this error condition, you first need to determine what caused it by using the VssAdmin command-line tool. After determining the cause of the error condition, follow the steps indicated for each possible cause.

To perform these procedures, you must have membership in Administrators, or you must have been delegated the appropriate authority.

Use VssAdmin to determine the cause of the error condition

To use VssAdmin to determine the cause of the error condition:

1. Open an elevated Command Prompt window. Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator.
2. Type vssadmin list writers, and then press Enter.

The output of this command will tell you that the cause of the error condition is one of the following:

• If the command does not respond, the VSS writer encountered an internal problem which caused it to stop responding to incoming requests. To fix this problem, you should restart the service or process that hosts the writer. If this does not resolve the issue, type net stop vss to stop the VSS service and retry the operation. The VSS service will start automatically when you retry the operation. If this does not resolve the issue, restart the computer.
• If the command reports the state of the writer as Retryable error, then the writer encountered a temporary error that can be resolved by retrying the backup. To fix this error, run the backup again. If this does not resolve the issue after one or two attempts, restart the computer.
• If the command reports the state of the writer as Non-retryable error, then the writer encountered a permanent error that can be resolved by restarting the service or process that hosts the writer. If this does not resolve the issue, open Event Viewer as described in the "Open Event Viewer and view events related to VSS" section and look for events related to the service or process that hosts the writer. If necessary, restart the service or process. If this does not resolve the issue, restart the computer. If restarting the computer does not resolve the issue, provide the Event Viewer information to the vendor that is responsible for the writer.
• If the command fails, event ID 12301 with source VSS will be logged in the Application log. Use Event Viewer to determine if this event has been logged. For more information, see the "Open Event Viewer and view events related to VSS" section. If this event has been logged, save the Event Log information related to event ID 12301, and provide this information to the vendor that is responsible for the writer.
• If the command reports that all writers are operating without errors, this means that the error condition is not writer-related. In this case, you should contact the backup software vendor.

Open Event Viewer and view events related to VSS

To open Event Viewer and view events related to VSS:

1. Click Start, click Run, type eventvwr.msc, and then click OK. If the User Account Control dialog box appears, ensure that the action it displays is what you want, and then click Continue.
2. In Event Viewer, expand Windows Logs, and then click Application.
3. To filter the events so that only events with a Source of VSS are shown, in the Actions pane, click Filter Current Log. On the Filter tab, in the Event sources drop-down list, select the checkbox for VSS. Select other options as appropriate, and then click OK.
4. To sort the displayed events by date and time, in the center pane, click the Date and Time heading.

Verify

To verify that the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) writers are operating correctly, perform the following procedure, and then retry the previous VSS operation.

To perform this procedure, you must have membership in Administrators, or you must have been delegated the appropriate authority.

To verify that the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) writers are operating correctly:

1. Open an elevated Command Prompt window. Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator.
2. Type vssadmin list writers, and then press Enter.
3. Ensure that all writers are in the Stable state and are operating without errors.

For more information about the vssadmin command, see https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=103401.

Related Management Information

VSS Writer Operations

File Services