Home / server / Questions / 39746
In Process
Chris W
Asked: 2009-07-14 00:14:03 +0800 CST

SQLVDI error - attempt to release mutex not owned by caller

  • 772

I've started getting some errors in the App event log of one of our database servers (Windows 2003 & SQL Server 2005). The nightly full database backups are completing successfully however immediately after the job success is written to the event log there is a run of entries that say:

SQLVDI: Loc=CVDS. Desc=Release(ClientAliveMutex). ErrorCode=(288)Attempt to release mutex not owned by caller.

There's five of these logged - the server itself has more than 20 databases on it which are all backed up successfully.

The server is backed up by Bacula using a VSS backup.

Has anyone got any ideas what would be causing the errors? They seem to have started after a re-boot on Friday to install some patches which included KB960089.

Edit:

After getting the errors for a few days they've now stopped without any action on my part other than letting the backups continue as they were. It may be a coincidence but they stopped after Bacula completed its weekly full rather than the daily incremental backup.

sql-server sql-server-2005 backup database-administration

1 Answers

  1. i would suggest applying SP3 against your SQL2005 instance, if you have not done so already.

    in my opinion the error is due to the use of VSS, as you have mentioned. if you are able to restore the databases from the backup files being created then i would say the errors are safe to ignore for now.

    • 1