VCSA SMB backup no longer working after update to 7.0U3f

[McDuder]

We have our vCenter appliance backing up to a network share via SMB. After upgrading the appliance to 7.0U3f, backups are no longer working. I found that they had not been running the schedule since the update, and that was likely due to the username field now requiring a domain. However, after adding that in the backups always fail with the error "Failed to create backup directory on backup server." All the permissions are correct, and I tried deleting everything in the backup folder on the share, but no change. Backups do run if I change the location to the C:\ drive of the server hosting the share, but they still fail with the error "BackupManager encountered an exception." Looking through the logs, there are errors with several files, and a bunch of warnings for FILE_INTEGRITY_CHECK_FAILED. 

[Yamato Sakai]

This post may be similar with your situation.

https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-vCenter-Discussions/VCSA-Backup-successful-but-with-file-integrity-failure/td-p/2906593

 

[LabMasterBeta]

VCSA version 7.0u3g has been released, I do not see mention of this issue in its release notes, but worth a try?

Also, there was some kind of SMB issues "resolved" in one of the 7.0u3-d-e-f erratas, I cannot recall what or which one so maybe they broke something or perhaps now it requires a certain higher version of SMB, e.g. newer versions of SMB protocol that supports encryption? Just a guess.

 

[McDuder]

Update:

I updated the appliance to 7.0U3g but no change. I tried changing from IWA to LDAP and rebooting VCSA, no luck. To rule out SMB, I tried backing up to a 2019 server (original was 2012 R2), but it's still failing.

 

[McDuder]

Update 2:

I'm now wondering if there's something wrong with the backup function in VCSA itself. Since I couldn't get SMB to work, I decided to try FTP. Got everything set up and ran it, and while the backup job said it failed to complete after 30 seconds, it still created the directory and backed up its files. I checked one of the failed SMB attempts (direct to server, network share still doesn't work), and it also backed up files - more than the FTP, actually, but I don't think it's everything. 

Luckily this is just our company's test lab, but now I'm worried the same will happen to our production environment.

[LabMasterBeta]

Using clean-install of ESXi and vCenter 7.0-u3c, updated to u3d, u3e, u3f, then vCenter to u3g...

My SMB backup of VCSA using the VAMI interface both manual and scheduled, works to my lab Synology NAS share on same switch as vSphere host.

 

[McDuder]

Update 3:

I tried completely removing VCSA from the domain, rebooting, re-adding, then rebooting again, but no change for SMB.

Next, I set up NFS on the server and tried backing up to that, and that completed successfully. 

[SESUP]

Hi...I had the same problem but with restore. SMB and FTP dont work for me. Just NFS.

[Bacchus20111014]

I have same issue and have had a case open since last November 2022.   I just upgraded to 7.03N which I'm told fixes the issue.  I'm still seeing the issue.   Will update when I know more or have it resolved

[LabMasterBeta]

I tried this and found the opposite of what I'd guessed earlier about needing a higher version of SMB..

To make this work, I had to enable SMB v1/2 fallback compatibility, AND enable NTLMv1.

We had NTLMv1 disabled for security reasons on our storage array.

However re-enabling NTLMv1 made this work for us.

This was backwards from what I'd expected.