VSS Writer Health

The VSS Writer Health check checks the writers of the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) on a Windows device. Backup software such as Windows Server Backup or Veeam depends on these writers. A writer that is not stable often leads to failed or inconsistent backups – the check makes this visible before the next backup fails. The check runs on Windows only (x64 and Arm64), every 60 minutes by default.

Prerequisites

• vssadmin list writers requires administrator rights. The octoja agent must run with sufficient rights.

Steps

1. Go to Devices and open the device.
2. Click the Checks tab → Add Check → VSS Writer Health.
3. Click Add Check.

Settings

The check has no configuration fields. On every run it reads all writers that vssadmin list writers reports on the device.

Results

The result shows how many writers are stable and, for each failed writer, its name and the numeric state from vssadmin.

• The check evaluates only the writer state. It does not evaluate the last error that vssadmin reports for a writer.
• The evaluation does not depend on the operating system language.
• The query has a 30-second timeout.
• If the check reports “No VSS writers found”, verify that the octoja agent runs with sufficient rights.

Platform support

See also: Volume Shadow Copy Age · Windows Backup