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Failed on backup files

  • May 22, 2026
  • 13 comments
  • 58 views

morgan.munck

Hello everyone,

I need some help with an issue and hope I won’t have to contact support. 
 

I’m seeing several failures on a file backup with the following error message:

Failed to perform repair backup Error: Agent: Failed to process method {NasMaster.TransformMeta}: The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.
Error: Agent: Failed to process method {NasMaster.TransformMeta}: The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.
Processing finished with errors 
 

I checked the logs, and the only thing that stands out are warnings like:

Masks are not applicable for the server path
So I understand that my exclusions cannot be taken into account.

 

I can’t seem to find a solution; I ran a Backup health check which returned the error:

Failed to perform repairing backup Error: Agent: Failed to process method {NasMaster.TransformMeta}: The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.

 

I don’t understand how to identify the file(s) causing the block. I don’t think I can delete them because they are a client’s backup.

Have you ever encountered this situation?

 


 

Bonjour à tous,

J'ai besoin d'aide sur un sujet en espérant ne pas avoir besoin du support. 

 

Sur un files backup j'ai plusieurs failed avec comment réponse:

Failed to perform repairing backup Error: Agent: Failed to process method {NasMaster.TransformMeta}: The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.
Error: Agent: Failed to process method {NasMaster.TransformMeta}: The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.
Processing finished with errors 

 

J'ai regardé les logs et la seule chose qui en ressort c'est des warnings du type: Masks are not applicable for the server path
Donc je comprends que mes exclusions ne peuvent pas être prises en compte.

 

Je ne parviens pas à trouver de solution, j'ai fait un Backup health check qui me retourne l'erreur:

Failed to perform repairing backup Error: Agent: Failed to process method {NasMaster.TransformMeta}: The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.

 

Je ne comprends pas comment déterminer le ou les fichiers qui sont bloquants. Je pense ne pas pouvoir les supprimer car il s'agit du backup d'un client.

Avez vous déjà rencontrer cette situation?

Best answer by morgan.munck

Hello everyone,

Thank you all so much for your quick responses.

It’s a backup to a NAS, and I think there was a “ghost backup job” left over that was specifically blocking this job.

So I restarted the VBR server and tried a retry, which failed again. 
So I (half-heartedly) restarted the job entirely, and (strangely) it’s running for now—let’s hope it goes smoothly all the way through. 

If that’s not the case, I’ll come back and let you know about my further investigations.

13 comments

lukas.k
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  • Influencer
  • May 22, 2026

Hi Morgan,

We cannot provide technical support - that is what our Veeam support is there for - but we can give some feedback from our own experience. Please keep in mind that for urgent cases you should open a Veeam support ticket anytime to speed up the troubleshooting process.

 

Can you give us a bit more insight of what exactly your setup looks like and what you are trying to do? Are you running VBR? Are you running Agents? When you run Agens, are they managed by VBR or standalone? What OS and Veeam software versions are you running? What are your backup targets?

 

The only thing that gets my attention in the log snippets you shared is this:

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

 

It seems like there are overlapping processes trying to access the same data, this might cause an issue.

 

Looking forward to your reply! Let’s see what we can do here.

 

Best regards

Lukas


Iams3le
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  • May 22, 2026

Hi ​@morgan.munck,

..read your post again and would say the lock is on the backup repository side and, not on the client. If this suggestion does not help, please open a support teicket as suggested above: https://forums.veeam.com/file-shares-and-object-storage-f57/backup-fails-with-error-failed-to-perform-backup-metadata-update-error-nasmaster-transformmeta-t84285.html

I believe the warning you found in the logs, “Masks are not applicable for the server path” is unrelated to the actual locking issue.


MarkBoothman
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  • Veeam Vanguard
  • May 22, 2026

The files in question aren’t on a drive with de-dup enabled are they? It sould be the optimise process running that is locking the file?


Chris.Childerhose
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Does running a new backup work?  Sometimes I have seen these types of errors and a new backup seems to fix this.


coolsport00
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  • Veeam Legend
  • May 22, 2026

Sorry ​@morgan.munck ...not seen this myself. But others have posted similar(ish) in the past. Aside from a Job re-run as Chris suggests (timing of some other process causing the lock perhaps?), opening a Veeam Support ticket is the best route. They have tools that can dive into your logs in greater detail for you. Curious what they find out. Keep us posted if you can.


dips
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  • On the path to Greatness
  • May 22, 2026

I have seen this before and the causes vary. Check if you have an overlapping job running. This could be a Health Check or a Synthetic Full as a lock will be placed on the backup file, which in turn will prevent another process from accessing the file. 


coolsport00
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  • Veeam Legend
  • May 22, 2026

You bring up a good point ​@dips . ​@morgan.munck - one potential cause could be because health check is a separate schedule to the Job now. As Dipen suggests, maybe check that is not running when a Backup kicks off?


AndrePulia
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  • Veeam Vanguard
  • May 22, 2026

@morgan.munck Is the backup repository hosted on a NAS? 


morgan.munck
  • Author
  • Comes here often
  • Answer
  • May 22, 2026

Hello everyone,

Thank you all so much for your quick responses.

It’s a backup to a NAS, and I think there was a “ghost backup job” left over that was specifically blocking this job.

So I restarted the VBR server and tried a retry, which failed again. 
So I (half-heartedly) restarted the job entirely, and (strangely) it’s running for now—let’s hope it goes smoothly all the way through. 

If that’s not the case, I’ll come back and let you know about my further investigations.


morgan.munck
  • Author
  • Comes here often
  • May 22, 2026

I can confirm that the backup job completed successfully.


Chris.Childerhose
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Great and glad to hear that.  Hopefully you have a resolution now and it works moving forward.

 
 
 

AndrePulia
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  • Veeam Vanguard
  • May 22, 2026

@morgan.munck NAS, sometimes leave files opened. some NAS devices have different ways to find out opened files, the most common commnad is #lsof | grep file-name.
Happy to see the backup is working, do you know what solve the problem?


coolsport00
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  • Veeam Legend
  • May 22, 2026

I can confirm that the backup job completed successfully.

Glad to hear you got it sorted ​@morgan.munck 👍🏻