Incremental Image backup fails on several Win Clients due to syntax error

client
1

Hello,

We have a strange incremental image backup error on several Windows clients, and I have absoluetly no idea what the cause of the problem could be.
The same error appears on several Windows 10, Server 2016 and Server 2012R2 systems.

The actual error message is.
The file name , directory name or volume label syntax is incorrect

I have attached the log file below.

Snippet (unfortunately in German)

Blockquote
2020-03-10 04:56:08: ERROR: Error opening volume . Die Syntax für den Dateinamen, Verzeichnisnamen oder die Datenträgerbezeichnung ist falsch. (code: 123)
2020-03-10 04:56:08: ERROR: backupcom->AddToSnapshotSet(&(Server->ConvertToWchar(selected_vols[i])[0]), GUID_NULL, &additional_refs[i].volid) failed. VSS error code UNDEF(-2147212531)
Blockquote

What confuses me is the space in “ERROR: Error opening volume****.” This looks like there is an empty parameter somewhere which results in this error. But I have no idea where…

Client Version: 2.4.10
Server Version: 2.4.12

Any help would be highly appreciated!

debug.log (25.2 KB)

1 Like
2

Hello again,

i would like to push this one time - we now receive this error on almost any Windows (Server 2012R2, Server 2016, 10) system.

Blockquote
2020-04-14 08:09:55: ERROR: Error opening volume . The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect. (code: 123)
2020-04-14 08:09:55: ERROR: backupcom->AddToSnapshotSet(&(Server->ConvertToWchar(selected_vols[i])[0]), GUID_NULL, &additional_refs[i].volid) failed. VSS error code UNDEF(-2147212531)

It seems that there is a setting which is the same for all machines and causes this problem, but I have no idea how to narrow down this :confused:

3

Same problem here. The issue occurs only if “Volumes to snapshot in groups during image backups” is set to “ALL” (default) or “all” (documentation). I manually tried creating a shadow copy set with all volumes (SYSVOL and C) using DISKSHADOW and that works. So @uroni while I agree VSS is often buggy and many problems can be attributed to Microsoft f’ing up, this seems to be a problem with ConvertToWchar(selected_vols,…).
How does one add the sysvol partition to the backed up volumes list manually? Since you can’t select that partition using explorer.exe, I don’t know how to test backing it up without the “ALL” setting.
Edit: scratch that last sentence, I see now SYSVOL and ESP are getting backed up even if only C: is selected in the settings. All is working now, albeit with possibly inconsistent backup states.

1 Like