One of a DBA from my client contacted me for a quick suggestion when I was working with them on a performance tuning exercise. I always ask for some time to explain the exact problem and behavior. As per the DBA, they are using 3rd party backup solutions to take backups and SQL backup are not happening. When they contacted 3rd party vendor they asked to run command VSSadmin List Writers and check if they have SqlServerWriter listed. Unfortunately, the component is missing from an output. He asked me the possible reasons. Since this was not a performance tuning related question and I promised that I would share whatever information I can find and write a blog post for that.
When I run it on one of my machine, I get below.
There are more Writers available which I am not showing in the image. The important point here is that the client was not seeing below, which I was able to see in my lab machine.
CHECKLIST
Based on my search on the internet, I found below possible causes.
- Make sure that the SQL Writer Service is installed.
![SQL SERVER - SqlServerWriter Missing from an Output of VSSadmin List Writers Command vss-writer-03]( "SQL SERVER - SqlServerWriter Missing from an Output of VSSadmin List Writers Command vss-writer-03")
If it’s not started, then start it. If it’s not available, then we need to install it from SQL installation media.
- Check Event logs and look for errors.
- Make sure that no database in the instance has trailing space in the name.
- Make sure service account for SQLWriter is able to connect to ALL instances on the machine.
WORKAROUND / SOLUTION
I was informed by my client that they had permission related issue and after changing the service account of SQL Server they could see the correct output and backups also started working.
Have you seen similar issue and found any solution other than what I listed earlier?
Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)
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