I came across an issue with vCenter backups continually failing on Veeam Backup and Replication 5.0.   All the rest of the backups ran smoothly, but vCenter continually failed with an error message stating “VSSControl: Failed to freeze guest, wait timeout”.  As I investigated the issue, I uncovered that it could be one of two issues…<!--more-->
<p style="text-align: left">1.     Issue: This issue came up due to continually failing Backups/Replication.  vCenter was conflicting with completion of backup due to a VSSControl.</p>
<p style="text-align: left"><a href="http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Untitled1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-6520" src="http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Untitled1-e1335887834850-300x110.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="110" /></a></p>
Errors: “VSSControl: Failed to <em>freeze guest</em>, waiting timeout”

Fix: <em>Separate vCenter from failing jobs</em> and <em>create new individual vCenter jobs</em>. This will allow you to communicate directly to the host.

<a href="http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/pic1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-6521" src="http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/pic1-e1335887908597.jpg" alt="" width="206" height="50" /></a>
<ul>
	<li>For more info on VSSControl/VSSFreezer (freeze guest) Error click <a href="http://www.veeam.com/kb_articles.html/KB1051">http://www.veeam.com/kb_articles.html/KB1051</a></li>
</ul>
2.     “VSSFreezer: Failed to <em>prepare guest</em>, wait timeout 900 sec”

Issue: Takes longer than expected pre the default timeout to freeze the I/O for this VM.

Fix: Modify registry by extending the default timeout.
<ul>
	<li>For more info and steps on modifying the value in the registry click <a href="http://www.veeam.com/KB1377">http://www.veeam.com/KB1377</a></li>
</ul>
Be sure to pay attention to the type of error that is occurring because they are extremely similar to one another. “<em>Freezing Guest” </em>has to do to with VSSControl error and “<em>Prepare Guest”</em> has to do more with VSSFreezer error.