Virtualization, Servers and Storage : UTORrecover - Understanding Daily Backup Reports

Created by JM Lopez, last modified on Aug 25, 2025

Introduction

UTORrecover sends daily backup reports to administrators. These reports can sometimes be challenging to interpret.

Based on our operational experience, this guide explains the most common report messages and their possible causes.

If you need more help with a report, you can:

Quick Reference

Report Section

Possible Causes

Successful backups with warnings

  • File changed during backup (e.g., log file grew).

Successful backups (no size or file details)

  • High-level success report only.

  • File count/size not shown.

  • Check Protected Client Logs in the Portal.

Failed backups

  • VSS snapshot issues (Windows): unstable VSS writers, insufficient disk space.

  • Authentication errors: backup user in more than 32 groups.

  • File/media errors: access denied, index/media DB issues.

  • Policy quirks: all clients succeeded but marked failed due to DNS or hostname warnings.

  • Check Protected Client Logs in the Portal.

  • Verify connectivity with Echo Request in the Portal.

Failed backups (no size or file details)

  • Early failure before file/size data recorded (e.g., file changes, authentication failure, VSS error).

  • Unsupported VSS writers (e.g., Oracle) skipped files not listed.

  • Check Protected Client Logs in the Portal.

  • Verify connectivity with Echo Request in the Portal.

Detailed Sections

Successful backups with warnings

Possible Causes:

  • File size changed during backup: A common warning arises when a file grows (like a log file) during the save session. NetWorker flags this as a warning but not a failure by default.

  • Success Threshold configuration: By default, NetWorker treats jobs that finish with warnings as failures. If the Success Threshold is set to “Warning” in the policy action settings, these jobs will be labeled “success with warnings” instead of failure.

Successful backups (no size or file details)

Possible Causes:

  • High-level success reporting: When you're only concerned that a backup succeeded and not about file details or size, tools like the UTORrecover Portal (https://utor.cloud/utorrecover/portal) in the Protected Client Logs sections, may be useful.

Failed backups

Possible Causes:

  • VSS snapshot creation issues (Windows systems):

    • VSS writer instability.

    • Insufficient disk space required to create a snapshot.
      These issues prevent proper backups for SYSTEM STATE, Block-Based Backups (BBB), or Disaster Recovery.

  • Authentication errors:

    • If a backup user belongs to more than 32 groups, NetWorker may fail to authenticate, resulting in a failed backup.

  • Other fatal or critical errors:

    • File access issues (e.g., file cannot be opened, read-only issues).

  • Policy-level quirks:

    • Even if all clients complete successfully, policy may show “Failed” due to underlying warnings such as reverse DNS lookup failures or unknown host names.

Failed backups (no size or file details)

Possible Causes:

  • In many failure scenarios, NetWorker flags the backup as failed at a high level and omits further detail like files or sizes, especially when the issue arises early, such as a file change during backups like log files, authentication failure or a critical VSS snapshot error.

  • Unsupported VSS writers (e.g., Oracle): Sometimes NetWorker silently skips unsupported files (like those detected by Oracle VSS writers) without warning or specific detail. The backup completes without these files, so there's no size/file coverage for those skipped items.