Hello, We need some help with a couple physical WinCC servers not backing up.  They were working fine and one stopped a little while ago.  Now another won't backup.  We are on WinCC v7.5.1.x with SQL server 2016 sp2.  If you stop the project the backup is successful.

error from Veeam:
"Creating VSS snapshot Error: Failed to create snapshot: Backup job failed. Cannot create a shadow copy of the volumes containing writer's data. A VSS critical writer has failed. Writer name: [SqlServerWriter]. Class ID: [xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]. Instance ID: [xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]. Writer's state: [VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_PREPARE_SNAPSHOT]. Error code: [0x800423f4].
Error: Failed to create snapshot: Backup job failed. Cannot create a shadow copy of the volumes containing writer's data. A VSS critical writer has failed. Writer name: [SqlServerWriter]. Class ID: [xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]. Instance ID: [xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]. Writer's state: [VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_PREPARE_SNAPSHOT]. Error code: [0x800423f4]."

Errors from the the SQL Error.log

Error: 3041, Severity: 16, State: 1.
2023-01-26 00:01:16.11 Backup BACKUP failed to complete the command BACKUP DATABASE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. Check the backup application log for detailed messages.
---
Error: 18210, Severity: 16, State: 1.
2023-01-26 00:01:16.11 spid96 BackupVirtualDeviceFile::PrepareToFreeze: failure on backup device 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'. Operating system error 995(The I/O operation has been aborted because of either a thread exit or an application request.).
-------------------------
Error: 18210, Severity: 16, State: 1.
2023-01-26 00:01:16.11 Backup BackupIoRequest::ReportIoError: write failure on backup device 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'. Operating system error 995(The I/O operation has been aborted because of either a thread exit or an application request.).

Thank you in advance.

Hi,

I'm afraid there is no non-Siemens program officially released to backup WinCC Stations when the RT is active.

I would recommend you to use the "Copy Project" WinCC tool, as detailed in the following link:

How do you backup/copy WinCC projects while WinCC Runtime is running?