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How to Forcibly Stop Stuck Jobs

KB ID: 1727
Product: Veeam Backup & Replication
Published: 2013-03-01
Last Modified: 2024-08-02
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Notice of Future Change

This article may be retired in the future. As the product has matured, the incidence of jobs or tasks becoming "stuck" has decreased significantly. However, there are instances where a job might be executing a background task, giving the appearance that it has become stuck. Misunderstandings about whether a job is genuinely stuck or not have led to an increase in the number of functioning jobs being prematurely terminated following the guidance in this article.

Veeam Support strongly recommends that if you suspect a job or task is stuck, instead of terminating it, you should collect process dumps and logs and create a Support Case. This enables our team to assist in thoroughly investigating the situation.

KB4563: How to Collect Process Dumps and Logs

Challenge

This KB documents the process for forcibly terminating all jobs for a given Veeam Backup & Replication server. The steps outlined in this KB will terminate all active jobs and tasks.

Notes:

  • Please understand that some jobs may take some time to stop. Please allow up to 60 minutes for jobs to stop on their own before forcibly terminating them (It's not that most jobs need 60 minutes to stop, but more so that it's better if the job can stop on its own rather than be terminated, so allow a job as much opportunity to stop on its own). 
  • If you are unsure whether a job is actually stuck or if it is simply doing something in the background, please collect logs and open a Veeam Support case to ask that a Support Engineer assess the situation.
  • A Job may appear stuck because a process or task the job is waiting for has not been completed. For example, in VMware environments, a snapshot removal operation may be pending or taking a long time to complete. Therefore, as the first step, it is recommended to check the vSphere Client to see if there is a snapshot removal process pending/working on the vSphere side.

Solution

Critical Details
  • The following steps will forcibly terminate ALL active jobs/restores.
  • Ensure that all tasks that can be stopped have stopped before proceeding.
  • Jobs performing background tasks may simply appear stuck.
    If you are unsure, rather than terminating jobs with brute force, collect logs and open a support case to ask a Veeam Support engineer to review and assess whether a background task is occurring.
Stop and Wait First

Before forcefully stopping a task by terminating its underlying processes, try using the Stop button in the UI or use the following PowerShell command:

Get-VBRJob -Name "<job_name>" | Stop-VBRJob

Allow the task time to stop on its own before taking steps to terminate processes. Remember, terminating processes for a job that only appears to be stuck could risk incomplete or corrupted restore points.

  1. Stop and Disable all other jobs.
    This is done to ensure active jobs can finish their current tasks cleanly.
    • (Optional) Backup Jobs may be Gracefully stopped allowing them to complete their current tasks.
    • Backup Copy Jobs have no "Stop" option, instead Disabling the job will trigger it to begin stopping procedures.
  2. Close the Veeam Backup & Replication console.
  3. Stop all services that begin with the word Veeam.
    Note: If other Veeam software is installed on the same server (e.g.,  Veeam ONE, Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows, Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365) stopping their services will interupt their operations.

    PowerShell:
Get-Service Veeam* | Stop-Service -Force
Note: Stopping the Veeam Backup Service may take some time because it is programmed to react to the stop request by checking for and terminating all tasks it manages before shutting down to prevent orphaning tasks.
  1. Open the Task Manager on the Veeam Server and kill all VeeamAgent.exe processes.
    Note: Some VeeamAgent.exe processes will be located on Source Proxies and Windows Repositories that are not the Veeam Server.

    PowerShell:
Stop-Process -Name VeeamAgent
  1. Wait 5-10 minutes for the tasks to time out and fail. 
  2. Remove snapshots from VM(s) that are part of the stuck jobs.

    VMware Environments: If the Backup/Replication Jobs were using the Virtual Appliance (HOTADD) transport mode, before removing the snapshots make sure there are no stuck disks on the Veeam Backup server or one of the backup proxies. Otherwise, the snapshots can be orphaned. https://vee.am/kb1775
  3. Start the services that were stopped in step 2.

    PowerShell:
Get-Service Veeam* | Start-Service
***Repeat Steps 2 –4 on each Proxy and Repository used by the Job. For Linux proxies, simply trigger a reboot.
If, after performing the steps above and waiting 10 minutes, the jobs are still listed as “Stopping,” please open a support case for further assistance.
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