backup fails with error code 0x81000019 and possible fix 1

[Flinx]

This would occur ONLY on Sunday and Monday night when the backup ran. The rest of the week it would work fine.

The gist of this is that windows backup was claiming that it could not write to a disk because my registry had a problem with some kind of permission. If that does not make sense well join the club. As usual microsoft leaves out important information like (you know) which disk? what registry entry? etc. because microsoft hates you.

This has been an ongoing saga for over year, the earliest instance of my backup failing in the logs is 9-15-2024 (I think the problem has been going on longer than that). Since I have a microsoft 2008 domain, and I got sick of microsoft constantly installing updates I enabled the group policy on my computer to stop automatic updates, as well as keeping microsoft from installing windows 11 until I am ready.

Starting on 10-09-2024 was the last automatic updates that ran.

Here are the errors from the application event logs:

Volume Shadow Copy Error: An error 0x00000000c000014d was encountered while Registry Writer was preparing the registry for a shadow copy. Check the Application and System event logs for any related errors.

Operation:
OnFreeze event
Freeze Event

Context:
Execution Context: Registry Writer
Execution Context: Writer
Writer Class Id: {afbab4a2-367d-4d15-a586-71dbb18f8485}
Writer Name: Registry Writer
Writer Instance ID: {8215455e-0c9d-46c5-88f1-a201c7658f25}

A VSS writer has rejected an event with error 0x800423f4, The writer experienced a non-transient error. If the backup process is retried,
the error is likely to reoccur.
. Changes that the writer made to the writer components while handling the event will not be available to the requester. Check the event log for related events from the application hosting the VSS writer.

Operation:
Freeze Event

Context:
Execution Context: Writer
Writer Class Id: {afbab4a2-367d-4d15-a586-71dbb18f8485}
Writer Name: Registry Writer
Writer Instance ID: {8215455e-0c9d-46c5-88f1-a201c7658f25}
Command Line: C:\windows\system32\vssvc.exe
Process ID: 2964


Writer Registry Writer experienced some error during snapshot creation. More info: .

Backup did not complete successfully because a shadow copy could not be created. Free up disk space on the drive that you are backing up by deleting unnecessary files and then try again.

now here is what I tried to fix the issue:

Everything between the 2 lines are things I tried that did NOT work

----------------------------------------------------------

System state backup fails - Windows Server

Provides a solution to an issue where you fail to perform a system state backup by using Windows Server Backup.

learn.microsoft.com

running this script (did not work)

icacls %windir%\winsxs\temp\PendingRenames /grant "NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM:(RX)"
icacls %windir%\winsxs\temp\PendingRenames /grant "NT Service\trustedinstaller:(F)"
icacls %windir%\winsxs\temp\PendingRenames /grant BUILTIN\Users:(RX) 
Takeown /f %windir%\winsxs\filemaps\* /a 
icacls %windir%\winsxs\filemaps\*.* /grant "NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM:(RX)"
icacls %windir%\winsxs\filemaps\*.* /grant "NT Service\trustedinstaller:(F)"
icacls %windir%\winsxs\filemaps\*.* /grant BUILTIN\Users:(RX)
net stop cryptsvc
net start cryptsvc

I found information that the drive that backup could not write to was the WINRE (Recovering Partition) basically that your recovery partition had to be either 499MB or at least about 2 gigs (not sure of the exact size) or the backup would fail. so if your recovery partition was 500MB but below about 2 gigs backup no worky (sometimes) it doesn't make sense.

So I resized my partition to 499MB which is not for the faint of heart because the instructions I found online neglect a whole ton of important information and/or don't work as they are supposed to.

----------------------------------------------------------

Now 2 things happened at the same time that it all started working again:

1. My computer mysteriously rebooted 2 times in about 1 week, I found that I had left a port open on my router that was NAT'd to 3389 for remote desktop. Someone was hammering my system trying to login with a ton of usernames that would never be on my computer. There was no blue screen. So I closed the port down. but I am not 100% convinced that has solved the random reboots that happen around 1am. Though on my old windows 7 something similar happened but there was a blue-screen and closing the remote desktop port fixed that.

2. After running updates on another computer (also with automatic updates turned off) I decided to update my computer.

This update installed the following updates:
KB5039893
KB5041580
KB5044273
KB5043130
KB5044029
KB5043131
KB5034441
KB5050411
KB5049621
KB5050388
KB5049981

The possible solution was the installation of KB5050411 which is a fix for KB5048239 which was a fix for winre size issues and also to fix a problem with KB5048239 that would cause it to repeatedly install. I never got the KB5048239 update because I do not allow automatic updates.

What exactly KB5050411 did I do not know, as far as I can tell my winre partition is still the same size. Either way my backup succeeded for Sunday and Monday for the first time in over a year.

 

[Flinx]

sigh™
well everything was working for 1 whole week and now it's failed again with the exact same errors.

 

[Flinx]

I may have an update on this in a few days. waiting to see if backups work.

 

[ClareAntonio]

This would occur ONLY on Sunday and Monday night when the backup ran. The rest of the week it would work fine.

The gist of this is that windows backup was claiming that it could not write to a disk because my registry had a problem with some kind of permission. If that does not make sense well join the club. As usual microsoft leaves out important information like (you know) which disk? what registry entry? etc. because microsoft hates you.

This has been an ongoing saga for over year, the earliest instance of my backup failing in the logs is 9-15-2024 (I think the problem has been going on longer than that). Since I have a microsoft 2008 domain, and I got sick of microsoft constantly installing updates I enabled the group policy on my computer to stop automatic updates, as well as keeping microsoft from installing windows 11 until I am ready.

Starting on 10-09-2024 was the last automatic updates that ran.

Here are the errors from the application event logs:

Volume Shadow Copy Error: An error 0x00000000c000014d was encountered while Registry Writer was preparing the registry for a shadow copy. Check the Application and System event logs for any related errors.

Operation:
OnFreeze event
Freeze Event

Context:
Execution Context: Registry Writer
Execution Context: Writer
Writer Class Id: {afbab4a2-367d-4d15-a586-71dbb18f8485}
Writer Name: Registry Writer
Writer Instance ID: {8215455e-0c9d-46c5-88f1-a201c7658f25}

A VSS writer has rejected an event with error 0x800423f4, The writer experienced a non-transient error. If the backup process is retried,
the error is likely to reoccur.
. Changes that the writer made to the writer components while handling the event will not be available to the requester. Check the event log for related events from the application hosting the VSS writer.

Operation:
Freeze Event

Context:
Execution Context: Writer
Writer Class Id: {afbab4a2-367d-4d15-a586-71dbb18f8485}
Writer Name: Registry Writer
Writer Instance ID: {8215455e-0c9d-46c5-88f1-a201c7658f25}
Command Line: C:\windows\system32\vssvc.exe
Process ID: 2964


Writer Registry Writer experienced some error during snapshot creation. More info: .

Backup did not complete successfully because a shadow copy could not be created. Free up disk space on the drive that you are backing up by deleting unnecessary files and then try again.

now here is what I tried to fix the issue:

Everything between the 2 lines are things I tried that did NOT work

----------------------------------------------------------

System state backup fails - Windows Server

Provides a solution to an issue where you fail to perform a system state backup by using Windows Server Backup.

learn.microsoft.com

running this script (did not work)

icacls %windir%\winsxs\temp\PendingRenames /grant "NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM:(RX)"
icacls %windir%\winsxs\temp\PendingRenames /grant "NT Service\trustedinstaller:(F)"
icacls %windir%\winsxs\temp\PendingRenames /grant BUILTIN\Users:(RX)
Takeown /f %windir%\winsxs\filemaps\* /a
icacls %windir%\winsxs\filemaps\*.* /grant "NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM:(RX)"
icacls %windir%\winsxs\filemaps\*.* /grant "NT Service\trustedinstaller:(F)"
icacls %windir%\winsxs\filemaps\*.* /grant BUILTIN\Users:(RX)
net stop cryptsvc
net start cryptsvc

I found information that the drive that backup could not write to was the WINRE (Recovering Partition) basically that your recovery partition had to be either 499MB or at least about 2 gigs (not sure of the exact size) or the backup would fail. so if your recovery partition was 500MB but below about 2 gigs backup no worky (sometimes) it doesn't make sense.

So I resized my partition to 499MB which is not for the faint of heart because the instructions I found online neglect a whole ton of important information and/or don't work as they are supposed to.

----------------------------------------------------------

Now 2 things happened at the same time that it all started working again:

1. My computer mysteriously rebooted 2 times in about 1 week, I found that I had left a port open on my router that was NAT'd to 3389 for remote desktop. Someone was hammering my system trying to login with a ton of usernames that would never be on my computer. There was no blue screen. So I closed the port down. but I am not 100% convinced that has solved the random reboots that happen around 1am. Though on my old windows 7 something similar happened but there was a blue-screen and closing the remote desktop port fixed that.

2. After running updates on another computer (also with automatic updates turned off) I decided to update my computer.

This update installed the following updates:
KB5039893
KB5041580
KB5044273
KB5043130
KB5044029
KB5043131
KB5034441
KB5050411
KB5049621
KB5050388
KB5049981

The possible solution was the installation of KB5050411 which is a fix for KB5048239 which was a fix for winre size issues and also to fix a problem with KB5048239 that would cause it to repeatedly install. I never got the KB5048239 update because I do not allow automatic updates.

What exactly KB5050411 did I do not know, as far as I can tell my winre partition is still the same size. Either way my backup succeeded for Sunday and Monday for the first time in over a year.

What abou the KB5048239 ?

 

[Flinx]

What abou the KB5048239 ?

not sure what you are asking.
KB5050411 supersedes it because it had a problem of constantly trying to install over and over..

 

[Flinx]

I waited 2 weeks to makes sure that my backups were working again. It seems that the files and folders that the backup error were referring to was on my backup destination drive.

the problem was that microsoft can't be bothered to make it very clear exactly what it could not write to. there is nothing in the error message that said drive X: or "this specific file/folder/whatever" all the errors are listed in my initial post.

after spending over a year researching this, reading forums, trying solutions (which could take a week to get results) I decided to swap out my backup drive. The initial backup went perfectly and the sunday and monday backup worked as well. So I ordered a second 2TB drive so as not to overwrite my current backup.

Once I got that I reconfigured my backup and file history to use the new drive and let the backups go for 2 weeks to make sure that it was working, and that the failure hadn't changed to a different day.

What was the problem? I am not 100% sure but when I looked in to how the backups are done I found that windows backup makes the initial backup drive image in to a .VHDX virtual disk file the each day after that it stores backups in "backup sets" folders with sub folders for 10 days, each sub folder contains hundreds of .ZIP files, catalogs, etc.

somewhere in my backup were files that had been created on a sunday, and a monday (as best I can figure) because that was when the backups were failing, and those files had gotten messed up security access. This may have happened because I got curious and attempted to look in the folders on the backup drive. Windows blocks access to the backup folders for anyone except the administrator and possibly backup operators. I may have attempted to open them, a window pops up saying you don't have access and would you like access? I probably said yes and that messed something up. I am not going to go through the old backup file by file to find the issue, since one of the sub folders can have over 700 .ZIP files and tons of catalog files.

so the fix in my case was to get a new disk, or wipe the current disk and start over on the backups. Why did I not do this to begin with? because the backup program did not specifically say that the destination was the problem (in any way that was clear) and no one else with the issue went back to where they posted the problem and reported their solution (if they ever had one).