Reset VSS Writers

source: http://www.planetcobalt.net/sdb/vss_writers.shtml

Six Demon Bag

Wind, fire, all that kind of thing!

2017-04-01

Reset VSS Writers

VSS writers are application-specific components for Microsoft's Volume Shadow Copy Service, which ensure the consistency of application data when a shadow copy is created. That's quite useful for creating consistent backups of a system. However, some of these writers go into error states more or less frequently. And Microsoft did not deem it necessary to document how to reset writers without rebooting the entire system (or at least I didn't manage to find that piece of information).

Since this burnt me once too often, I started compiling a list of VSS writers and the services that need to be restarted to reset each of them. Some are rather obvious, others (System Writer for instance) not so much.

VSS Writer	Service Name	Service Display Name
ADAM (<instance_name>) Writer	ADAM_<instance_name>	<instance_name>
ASR Writer	VSS	Volume Shadow Copy
BITS Writer	BITS	Background Intelligent Transfer Service
Certificate Authority	CertSvc	Active Directory Certificate Services
COM+ REGDB Writer	VSS	Volume Shadow Copy
Dedup Writer	ddpvssvc	Data Deduplication Volume Shadow Copy Service
DFS Replication service writer	DFSR	DFS Replication
DHCP Jet Writer	DHCPServer	DHCP Server
FRS Writer	NtFrs	File Replication
FSRM writer	srmsvc	File Server Resource Manager
IIS Config Writer	AppHostSvc	Application Host Helper Service
IIS Metabase Writer	IISADMIN	IIS Admin Service
Microsoft Exchange Replica Writer	MSExchangeRepl	Microsoft Exchange Replication Service
Microsoft Exchange Writer	MSExchangeIS	Microsoft Exchange Information Store
Microsoft Hyper-V VSS Writer	vmms	Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management
MSMQ Writer (MSMQ)	MSMQ	Message Queuing
MSSearch Service Writer	WSearch	Windows Search
NPS VSS Writer	EventSystem	COM+ Event System
NTDS	NTDS	Active Directory Domain Services
OSearch VSS Writer	OSearch	Office SharePoint Server Search
OSearch14 VSS Writer	OSearch14	SharePoint Server Search 14
OSearch15 VSS Writer	OSearch15	SharePoint Server Search 15
Registry Writer	VSS	Volume Shadow Copy
Shadow Copy Optimization Writer	VSS	Volume Shadow Copy
SharePoint Services Writer	SPWriter	Windows SharePoint Services VSS Writer
SMS Writer	SMS_SITE_VSS_WRITER	SMS_SITE_VSS_WRITER
SPSearch VSS Writer	SPSearch	Windows SharePoint Services Search
SPSearch4 VSS Writer	SPSearch4	SharePoint Foundation Search V4
SqlServerWriter	SQLWriter	SQL Server VSS Writer
System Writer	CryptSvc	Cryptographic Services
TermServLicensing	TermServLicensing	Remote Desktop Licensing
WDS VSS Writer	WDSServer	Windows Deployment Services Server
WIDWriter	WIDWriter	Windows Internal Database VSS Writer
WINS Jet Writer	WINS	Windows Internet Name Service (WINS)
WMI Writer	Winmgmt	Windows Management Instrumentation

This list is far from complete. It merely contains those writers I already had to deal with and some contributions from fellow administrators.

You can use PowerShell for listing failed writers:

& vssadmin list writers | Select-String -Context 0,4 '^writer name:' | ? {
  $_.Context.PostContext[2].Trim() -ne "state: [1] stable" -or
  $_.Context.PostContext[3].Trim() -ne "last error: no error"
}

or the state of a particular writer:

$name = [Regex]::Escape('writer name')
& vssadmin list writers | Select-String -Context 0,4 "^writer name: .*$name"