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The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process

KB ID: 1960
Product: Veeam Backup & Replication
Published: 2014-11-19
Last Modified: 2023-03-27
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Challenge

A job or task fails with the error:

The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.

Indicating that a file is locked by another process/task. The console may indicate specifically what file is locked. Identification of the process that is locking the file(s) must take place.

Example:

File in use example
Example of how this error appeared in all versions prior to Veeam Backup & Replication 12.
Starting in Veeam Backup & Replication 12, the error message will now include details about the locking process, when possible.
v12 win repo
As shown, the improved error message includes the exact process name and process ID.
In this example, diskspd was used to intentionally lock the VBK file to cause this error to occur.

Solution

NAS Involvement
While a process on a NAS can lock a file, due to the way some NAS devices may restrict terminal access, it can be challenging to identify if any processes on the NAS itself are locking files. If a reboot of the NAS does not resolve the lock, it may be necessary to involve the storage vendor.

Windows File Locks

There are many ways to track down which process is locking a file; see below for examples.

The methods described in this article should be performed on the machine where the locked file is located.

 

Resource Monitor

  1. Open Resource Monitor. (resmon.exe)
  2. Switch the CPU tab.
  3. Expand the Associated Handles section.
  4. In the Search Handles field, enter the locked file's name, and press Enter
  5. Review the Search Results
Resource Monitor Handle Search
In this example, diskspd was used to intentionally lock the file to force the error to occur within Veeam Backup & Replication. While this is an unlikely real-world scenario, this is only meant to demonstrate utilizing the Associated Handles search function.

Process Explorer

Available from Microsoft: Process Explorer Download

  1. Open Process Explorer
  2. In the menu bar, click Find and click Find Handle or DLL...
procexplorefind
  1. In the Process Explorer Search window that appears, enter the locked file's name.
  2. Review the search results to determine which process is locking the file.
Process Explorer Search
In this example, diskspd was used to intentionally lock the file to force the error to occur within Veeam Backup & Replication. While this is an unlikely real-world scenario, this is only meant to demonstrate utilizing the Process Explorer Search function.

Linux File Locks

There are utilities that can be used to determine File Locks on a Linux repository, and this section will cover the usage of lslocks. However, there may be other distribution-specific utilities and methods. It is critical to differentiate between Locked and Opened files. It is possible for a file to be in a locked state but not be actively opened. A command like lsof will only list actively opened files.

  • LSLOCKS — Requires util-linux package
  • LSOF — LSOF used without any options will show a list of all open files belonging to active processes. Specifying a particular file will show active processes for that file. If the file name is known using the following:
    lsof “\path\to\file”
    

 

Manually investigating /proc/locks can also be done like so:

sudo find -L /proc/*/fd -maxdepth 1 -print -exec readlink {} \;

In either scenario, one must verify that the file is not actively modified. File Locks can come from a variety of sources. If a job is unexpectedly terminated due to a network drop, it is plausible that the Veeam Agent finished but never received a terminate command. If the repository uses deduplication, the storage may have too aggressive of a profile active and is locking the file(s) as soon as Veeam releases a lock on them.

Once verified that the locked file is no longer being modified, it is safe to manually kill any process still maintaining a lock on the file.

Killing a process that is modifying a file may result in a corrupted file.

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