Challenge
Hot-add or SAN mode fails on a localized proxy.
In the job log, you can see the following error:
Info [AP] (2a1a) output: 2012-01-26T12:07:14.429+01:00 [02252 error 'Default'] Cannot use advanced transport modes for xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/moref=vm-xxx/snapshot-xxx: Cannot lock directory C:\Windows\TEMP\VeeamBackup\VeeamAgent-xxx\vmware-Syst??me\4236b6e2-7cc1-1eb0-71dc-7469acd8abaf-vm-xxx.\n
Info [AP] (d8e4) output: --wn:Hot add is not supported for this disk, failing over to network mode...\n
Info [AP] (d8e4) warning: Hot add is not supported for this disk, failing over to network mode...
Warning Hot add is not supported for this disk, failing over to network mode...
Cause
The issue is connected to the limitations of the VMware VDDK 5.0 disk library
(http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vddk/VDDK-500-ReleaseNotes.html):
Problem using UTF-16 characters in pathnames.
When VixDiskLib_Open() is given a pathname containing UTF-16 characters, the virtual disk library fails to find the file. On Windows 2008 for example, the pathname Temp\vmware-système\*vm* contains è as a UTF-16 character, whereas VixDiskLib expects UTF-8. One workaround is to override the Temp pathname in the configuration file by setting the tmpDirectory key, using a non-UTF-16 pathname. For details, see documentation for VixDiskLib_InitEx(). KB 1037379 discusses a similar issue.
Solution
The current workaround is to restart all six Veeam services under a user other than a local administrator. In this case, the path to the temporary directory causing the issue will look like C:\Windows\TEMP\VeeamBackup\VeeamAgent-xxx\vmware-NameOfTheUser\.
Do the following:
- Close the Veeam console.
- Create a new user (domain administrator) on Veeam server using only non-accented letters and numbers (and no special symbols) for the username as well as for the password.
- Add this user to the group of local administrators.
- Log in to Veeam server using the credentials of the new user.
- Modify all six Veeam services so they use the credentials of the new user.
- Restart all Veeam services.
- Restart the jobs.
More Information
After restarting all Veeam services under the new user, you should see the following in the log:
Info [AP] (6378) output: 2011-12-13T17:35:09.288+01:00 [01688 info 'transport'] Successfully mounted snapshot ssid:snapshot-67 on mount point C:\Users\veeam\AppData\Local\Temp\VeeamBackup\VeeamAgent-xxx\vmware-veeam\
(The user name in this case is "Veeam")