"0x8004231f" error occurs and backup task fails in "Exit -311"error

Summary

Exit -311 and VSS error (0x8004231f) may occur.

03/30/2021 06:04:44.861 com exception caught(0x8004231f) in VssStart
     ：
03/30/2021 06:04:44.953 {IDS_STRING3018}Exit Code: -311

Causes

This error occurs with “VSS_E_INSUFFICIENT_STORAGE” message indicating that “ShadowStorage does not have enough available space”. Please check the available space in the destination drive saving backup images and make sure that the destination drive has available space larger than 10% of the total space. When the respective drives have enough available space, the cause of this issue is likely to be due to recovery partitions.

1) Calculation of required space in recovery partition
Use “diskpart” command to check recovery partition

DISKPART> list partition Partition ### Type               Size    Offset ------------- ------------------ ------- ------- Partition 1   Recovery            499 MB  1024 KB Partition 2   System               99 MB   500 MB Partition 3   Reserved             16 MB   599 MB Partition 4   Primary              98 GB   615 MB

2) Use “diskinfo” command to calculate available space.
Run the following to display the detailed disk information. Please check the information corresponding to the partition number.

>C:Program Files (x86)ActiphyActiveImage Protectoraipcontrol diskinfo             Partition Number: 1         Drive Letter:     <None>         Partition Type:   DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC         FSType:           Unknown(0)         Boot:             0         System:           0         CSV:              0         Extended:         0         Sector Size:      512         Cluster Size:     4096         StartOffset:      2048         Total Clusters:   127743         Free Clusters:    6781         Total Sectors:    1021952 (0.49 GB)         Serial Number:    B4CEB079         Unique ID:        ?Volume{6111596d-3375-48ec-bbda-b36dbfd5d28e}         Volume Label:     Recovery

3) Calculation of required space using the information of “cluster”

Use the values of “Free Clusters” and “Cluster Size” for calculation of the available space.
(6781 * 4096)/1024/1024 = 26MB
In this example, about “499MB” recovery partition has about “26MB” available space, which is not enough.

According to Microsoft, the small volume is specified as follows: 500MB or larger partition must have 320MB of available space. 500MB or less partition must have 32MB available space.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-essentials-sbs/ff402401(v=ws.11)?redirectedfrom=MSDN
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Make sure there is enough free space on each volume for backup to run. Backup requires some additional disk space on the client computer to create a VSS snapshot.
On any volume that is not system reserved, at least 10 percent of available disk space must be free.
On a system reserved volume, if the volume size is less than 500 MB, VSS requires 32 MB of free space to create a snapshot;
if the volume is 500 MB or greater, VSS requires 320 MB of free space.
If insufficient free space is available on a volume, try one of these resolutions:Extend the volume. You can extend any basic or dynamic volume except the system reserved volume.
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Workaround

Select a volume to configure the settings for a backup task. Or, if the issue is caused by recovery partition, the recovery partition may be deleted. If you use a PC maker’s machine, in many cases the recovery partition has data and is possibly used by recovery option. Before deleting the recovery partition, please contact the PC maker and make sure it will present no problem.

Target Product

– ActiveImage Protector 2018