For several years I’ve been setting up dozens of times the Backup BizTalk Server job without any kind of problems… but there’s a first time for everything and when I was trying to help remotely a friend configuring this job, we got stuck with this error when we try to start it:
Log Job History (Backup BizTalk Server (BizTalkMgmtDb))
Step ID 0
Job Name Backup BizTalk Server (BizTalkMgmtDb)
Step Name (Job outcome)
Message
The job failed. The Job was invoked by User domain\user. The last step to run was step 2 (BackupFull). The job was requested to start at step 1 (Set Compression Option).
I knew that the job was configured correctly but unfortunately I didn’t have access to the SQL Server in order to see if I could find out more information about what was happening… Well, according to the error message we know that the job started in the first task “Set Compression Option” but failed in the second “BackupFull”. Beyond that the error message doesn’t help us much.
By going to the job history (right click in “Backup BizTalk Server (BizTalkMgmtDb)” job and select “View History” option)) we can validate that the problem in the BackupFull task but again the message described there doesn’t help us much.
CAUSE
Unfortunately this error can happen for several reasons and we need to check what the best option for us is::
- In Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 and later, the Backup BizTalk Server job fails, and problems occur that relate to limited disk space. This happens when the backup files accumulate over time. This fills up the disk that houses the backup files.
- This issue occurs because the SQL Server Agent job that is named “Backup BizTalk Server” does not provide functionality for deleting backup files that have accumulated over time. See: The “Backup BizTalk Server” job fails when backup files accumulate over time in the Microsoft BizTalk Server database server
- Or you can create a Maintenance Plan to delete BizTalk Database Backups files see more here
- I found also this great suggestion by Tord Glad Nordahl: “Verify that the compression option for the database is correct, after this open the management database located the table called “adm_BackupSettings” update this column “ForceFull” and set the value to 1. Then manually run the backup job again.” In this forum question.
But none of these suggestions work for me, in fact this was the first time that we were trying to run the job.
However sometimes solutions are simpler than it seems. If you check the parameters of the BackupFull step you will see that the third parameter is the location of backup files and this location must exist in the file system… so because I didn’t have access to the SQL Server machine, I asked to my friend to:
- Validate if the folder exist in the file system;
- See in the event viewer of the SQL Server if there was more information about the error;
The result was:
- The folder didn’t exist… never a good sign
- In the event viewer of the SQL Server Machine there was an entry saying the exact problem:
BackupDiskFile::CreateMedia: Backup device ‘K:\Backups\BizTalk Database\Full\BTS2013LAB01_BAMAlertsApplication_Full_BTS_2013_11_11_16_45_25_870.bak’ failed to create. Operating system error 3(The system cannot find the path specified.).
SOLUTION
You must remember that you need to ensure that all the paths specified in the BizTalk jobs must exist in the file system. In my case, we create the folder on the file system and run the job again with success.
