Veeam Windows Agent CE hangs showing "Preparing backup"

What version of Windows?  What version of the Veeam Agent CE edition are you using?  Little more information helps.  Also check the logs here - C:\ProgramData\Veeam\Backup

Veeam Windows Agent CE 13.0.2.1102 on my laptop.. Windows 11 Home 25H2 26200.8246.

Veeam Windows Agent CE 13.0.1.1009 on my desktop. Windows 11 Pro 24H2 26100.8246.

In both cases, logs showed like:

[28.04.2026 20:34:04.658] <36> Info (1) [VeeamEpSysUtils] Disabling VSS writers.

[28.04.2026 20:34:04.666] <36> Info (2) [VeeamEpSysUtils] virtual machine isn't clustered, excluding: ClusterSharedVolumeVssWriter ClusterDatabaseVssWriter

[28.04.2026 20:34:04.668] <36> Info (1) [VeeamEpSysUtils] Collecting VSS writers metadata.

And “vssadmin list writers” hangs as well.

Looks like my solution runs into a race condition on my laptop and the desktop.

Microsoft aggressively reinstalls the removed package, which hangs vss writers during the Veeam backup, and Veeam hangs while trying to finalize the backup.

Checking the removed widget while the Veeam session is hung shows the widget has been reinstalled, and “vssadmin list writers” hangs again.

So the job ends up:

[28.04.2026 22:26:40.420]    <92>    Info (1)    [VeeamEpSysUtils]                         Writer was notified about the successfully backed up component. Component's logical path: []. Component name: [PerformanceCounters].
[28.04.2026 22:26:40.420]    <92>    Info (1)    [VeeamEpSysUtils]                     Notifying a VSS writer about the successfully backed up components. Writer name: [Performance Counters Writer]. Class ID: [{0bada1de-01a9-4625-8278-69e735f39dd2}]. Instance ID: [{f0086dda-9efc-47c5-8eb6-a944c3d09381}].. Ok.
[28.04.2026 22:56:40.205]    <68>   Error (4)    [VeeamEpSysUtils]                 Wait processing thread failed. Timeout (30 min) occured.
[28.04.2026 22:56:40.209]    <68> Warning (3)    [VeeamEpSysUtils]                 Freeze job is not finished yet, but desctruction of controlling object is in progress. Waiting until the job finishes.

After a reboot, the job session shows as having an error in the Veeam interface.

So no backups for me on Windows 11 devices.

Hopefully Microsoft fixes it.

Except for the “System Writer”, the list of writers in the Veeam log exactly matches the list of writers returned by “vssadmin list writers”.

So best guess is that the System Writer is hanging during the final stage of “..notifying a VSS writer about the successfully backed up components,” preventing finalization of the backup run.

I opened a new thread without realizing of this one. Can confirm the same issue that’s also widespread and affecting a lot of backup softwares.

In my case MS-DEFCON 3: KB5083769 causes backup issues @ AskWoody  this KB was installed just today, and caused also issues with chrome 147 that forced me to restore a manual backup ( oldschool zip) of the installed chrome 125 that keeps working if updated to 145 (but crashes hard restoring the session if 147)

win11 24h2 pro for workstations
Veeam agent for windows 13.0.2.1102 free edition

I wrote a timing loop script to check if “vssadmin list writers” hangs. This was run directly after boot. It looks like the hang does not occur for 2 or 3 minutes, so I tried to start a Veeam backup in that window. Yesterday, after midnight, and directly after booting, I was able to complete a successful Veeam backup. However, I have been unable to replicate that success.

While attempting to understand the timing issue, and why one backup was successful out of 10 or so failed ones, I looked more closely at what the backup was doing with the assumption that the successful backup completed VSS critical notifications in less than 2 minutes. What I found was that subsequent failed backup attempts took less time to reach the critical finalize stage than the one successful backup, which itself took more than 4 minutes. The reason these failed backups took less time to reach the finalize stage was because subsequent failed backups were incrementally backing up using the previous failed backup as reference.

The real question now is: are any backups actually happening at all? I can't restore these incomplete backups in the GUI as they are marked as failed, and since they seem to be related to each other, how can I expect even a repaired OS to facilitate Veeam restoration if the next successful backup merely creates an incremental backup based on invalid backups in the chain? And my successful backup, is that even valid?

I would think a new full backup would be required when this gets fixed upstream.