Since applying Exchange 2007 SP1, about 2/3 of our Exchange IS (w/ GRT) backups say they complete successfully, but only backup one of our two stores. Each one displays the following error:

Writer Name: Microsoft Exchange Writer, Writer ID: {76FE1AC4-15F7-4BCD-987E-8E1ACB462FB7}, Last error: The VSS Writer failed, but the operation can be retried (0x800423f3), State: Failed during backup complete operation (12).

I just tried the job right now, got that error, and checked the Exchange VSS writers on both nodes of our cluster. Both show Stable and No Error. Prior to applying SP1, we had no error and the same job ran successfully every night for about four months. I did a cursory search of these forums and some suggested updates to the VSS writers ... specifically, KB940349, which I applied but no difference. The Exchange servers are Windows Server 2003 x64, with SP2 and all critical updates applied.

In the event logs on the cluster, I see two warnings and two errors:

First a warning on the active member, ESE BACKUP, 'surrogate backup' stopped with error 0xFFFFFFFF.

Next, an error on the active member, ESE, the backup has been stopped because it was halted by the client or the connection failed.

Next, a warning on the passive member, MSExchangeRepl, the VSS Writer failed.

Last, an error on the passive member, MSExchangeRepl, VSS Writer failed with code FFFFFFFC when processing the backup completion event. (C = 12 = the State in the BE error??)

On the backup jobs that do backup both stores, there are no errors or warnings in the event viewer.

This problem was brought on by the SP1 upgrade obviously ... is this a VSS problem or a cluster problem or what?