• Article

An error occurred during backup of an Exchange store database - the cause and resolution for the online backup failure depends on the error listed in the Description of the event

 

Topic Last Modified: 2007-11-16

The Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Management Pack for Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) monitors the Windows Application log on computers that are running Exchange Server 2007 and generates this alert when the event or events specified in the following Details table are logged.

To learn more about this event, do one or more of the following:

  • Review the description of the event that includes the variables specific to your environment. From the MOM Operator Console, select this alert, and then click the Properties tab.

  • Review all events that have been logged that meet the criteria of this MOM alert. From the MOM Operator Console, click the Events tab, and then double-click the event in the list for which you want to review the event description.

Details

Product Name

Exchange

Product Version

8.0 (Exchange Server 2007)

Event ID

217

Event Source

ESE

Alert Type

Critical Error

MOM Rule Path

Microsoft Exchange Server/Exchange 2007/Common Components/Extensible Storage Engine

MOM Rule Name

An error occurred during backup of an Exchange store database - the cause and resolution for the online backup failure depends on the error listed in the Description of the event.

Explanation

This Error event indicates that an error occurred during the online Exchange-aware backup of an Exchange store database. The cause for the online backup failure depends on the error listed in the Description section of the event. The most frequent causes are the following:

  • This error may be generated because ESE was unable to gain exclusive access to the .pat file for the database. This file is created when the backup starts and it contains information about the changes that are made to specific pages while the backup is running.

    • If pages are deleted during the backup, then after that part of the database has been written to tape, the .pat file holds the updated information. When the backup is completed, the .pat file is backed up and deleted.

    • If the database goes offline during backup, then the .pat file is not deleted until the next time backup starts and ESE deletes the current one and creates a new one.

  • Another cause relates to the -1018 error in the Description section. This error indicates a hardware-related root cause. Check the system log, run chkdsk and perform other diagnostic tasks.

  • Another possible description relates to the -613 error. Error -613 signifies a checksum error in the SLV file during backup, where SLV stands for streaming, or .stm file. Error -613 may also be hardware-related. Check the system log, run chkdsk and perform other diagnostic tasks. It is suspected that error -613 may occur from non-hardware related issues such as different third-party SMTP disclaimer software packages. Other causes are under investigation. If you have exhaustively checked all hardware-related causes, contact Microsoft Product Support Services. For more information about how to contact support, visit the Microsoft Help and Support Web site.

User Action

To resolve this error, do one or more of the following:

  • If the .pat file is locked by another program such as antivirus or backup software, ESE will fail the backup. To resolve this error, stop the other software or wait for it to finish accessing the .pat file. Perform another backup of the database.

  • If the error in the description is error -1018, perform a successful backup, by one of the following methods. First, determine the root cause of the failure and fix it. -1018 errors will return if the root cause is not fixed. Restore the Exchange store from the previous online backup or if the mailbox store is affected and you have an Enterprise version of Exchange, move the mailboxes to another server or mailbox store. To repair the corruption in database pages if you do not have a valid backup and you are running the Standard version of Exchange, run the eseutil /p command, and then run the isinteg -fix command on the affected store. After you make repairs to the database by using the eseutil /p command, the database may not be stable and reliable. Because the repair process deletes database pages, data loss is likely.

    Note

    If you must run a hard repair on your production database, Microsoft recommends that you move the data out of the repaired database to a new database, or rebuild the database using Move Mailbox or ExMerge.

  • If the error in the description is -613, follow the resolution steps for error -1018. If the resolution requires a repair, as a last resort, you cannot repair the .stm file alone. You must repair the .edb file and its associated .stm file.

  • For information about ESE error codes other than the ones explained in this topic, see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base articles:

For More Information

To search the Microsoft Knowledge Base articles based on criteria that generated this alert, visit the Search the Support Knowledge Base (KB) Web site.

To review Exchange 2007 event message articles that may not be represented by Exchange 2007 MOM alerts, see the Events and Errors Message Center.

If you are not already doing so, consider running the tools that Microsoft Exchange offers to help administrators analyze and troubleshoot their Exchange environment. These tools can help you make sure that your configuration is in line with Microsoft best practices. They can also help you identify and resolve performance issues, improve mail flow, and better manage disaster recovery scenarios. Go to the Toolbox node of the Exchange Management Console to run these tools now. For more information about these tools, see Toolbox in the Exchange Server 2007 Help.