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BCD file locked and breaking my backups

Hi all,

I have a problem with a client server where backups are being broken. We use Unitrends for backup and everything was working fine until about August 18th. We run Server 2019 Standard and now we are getting backups failing pretty much every night. The logs say the the \EFI\Microsoft\boot\bcd file is locked and cannot be accessed. From some digging with Process Explorer it is being locked, along with bcd.log by the System process. Has anyone else had this happen and figured out a solution?

Thanks,

Brandon

windows-serverwindows-server-2019
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DSPatrick answered BrandonFogliano-5201 commented

May need to look for an option in Unitrends to skip locked or in use files. As a work-around you could use /export option to back it up.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/bcdedit-command-line-options


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Thanks for the response DS, but what I am trying to understand is why this is happening and how to fix it. If this was widespread among Server 2019 instances then Unitrends would be in major trouble. I am working with their support as well and they are not seeing this across many Server 2019 instances. Also to your point, if we exclude the Boot Configuration files recovering the entire system after a crash would not work, therefore kind of defeating the purpose. I have determined that the System process is locking these files but why did this start occurring on August 18th? I have numerous other Server 2012 machines not having this issue, but they do have different circumstances, such as they are VMs. But either way this was working and stopped working, did MS push an update that could have broke this?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Brandon

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DSPatrick avatar image
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DSPatrick answered

You might try confirming this by doing a system state backup.

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BrandonFogliano-5201 answered

What we did to confirm, was exclude the System State from the backup. Once we did this the backup completed. As soon as we add the System State back in the backup fails with the same error that bcd and bcd.log are locked and can't be accessed. But here is the weird thing, if we run the backup manually every now and again, it will complete with the System State included. It is very weird.

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DSPatrick avatar image
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DSPatrick answered

Could be some timing thing to do with Unitrends. You might try confirming this by doing a system state backup from windows without the use of the third party tools.

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BrandonFogliano-5201 answered

I will try that.

Thanks

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