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The Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) on my Windows 10 22H2 PC appears to be stuck creating a shadow copy. How do I unstick it?

I noticed my backup software (Arq) hanging for two days on "Creating VSS snapshot". Restarting the VSS service has not fixed this. Restarting the whole machine, several times, has not fixed this. vssadmin list writers reports "Waiting for responses. These may be delayed if a shadow copy is being prepared."

I looked in the Application and System logs in Event Viewer. An hour before the failed backup job, volsnap reported "The oldest shadow copy of volume C: was deleted to keep disk space usage for shadow copies of volume C: below the user defined limit". There are no errors around the time the backup job began, and filtering for events with source "VSS" shows normal-looking events such as "The VSS service is shutting down due to idle timeout".

I believe (but cannot be sure) that the VSS issue is now causing wider Windows issues: since it began, right-clicking on a folder causes Windows Explorer to hang (has to be restarted with Task Manager); also some tiles in the Start Menu are missing their icons.

I'm not aware of having changed any relevant settings recently. The machine receives automatic Windows updates, the latest are from November 16th.

Windows 10, 22H2.

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  • Delete volume shadow. You should be able do this in Settings. Restart and re-create volume shadow.
    – anon
    Commented Nov 22, 2023 at 20:16
  • What settings? Where?
    – matthewr
    Commented Nov 22, 2023 at 20:20
  • Check the size allocated to shadow copy with vssadmin list shadowstorage. You may increase it, if insufficient, using vssadmin resize shadowstorage. Be careful of the amount of free space left in the disk.
    – harrymc
    Commented Nov 22, 2023 at 20:21
  • Use this article minitool.com/backup-tips/how-to-delete-shadow-copies.html
    – anon
    Commented Nov 22, 2023 at 20:23

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Update: appears to be resolved. I restarted the COM+ Event System service, and dependent services. vssadmin list writers now responds normally.

Credit: https://richardstk.com/2017/11/03/server-2012-r2-vssadmin-waiting-for-response-vssadmin-list-writers-is-empty/

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