Event ID 6013 - VSS Login failed for user NT AUTHORITY\\SYSTEM

Summary

A recurring error message seems to have started to appear on one of our new Windows Server 2003 servers which has SQL installed.

Log: APPLICATION (#903)
Event ID: 6013
Event Time: Fri Jan 21 02:02:14 PM
Severity: Error
Event User: N/A
Event Source: VSS
Event Detail: Sqllib error: OLEDB Error encountered calling IDBInitialize::Initialize. hr = 0x80040e4d. SQLSTATE: 42000, Native Error: 18456 Error state: 1, Severity: 14
Source: Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server
Error message: Login failed for user 'NT AUTHORITYSYSTEM'

Solution

The error might be related to several factors.

The error mentions a login failure and 0x80040e4d, which is authentication failed.

After researching the issue, it might not be related to VSS itself, but the permission setting in SQL.

The issue can be reproduced if the BUILTINAdministrators login was dropped from SQL server. Therefore, its worth checking whether the BUILTINAdministrators is in the system
administrator role. Also verify the specified account has the right to login.

In this case it was found to be the builtinadministrator had been remove. Once this was corrected ie. put back in the problem appears to have stopped.

If in this does not help and does not appear to fix the problem there are some additional troubleshooting for SBS 2003 and the VSS component. As VSS is a common part on all Server 2003 platforms, the general steps in the below document apply to all Windows Server 2003 versions which support VSS service, SBS being one of them.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/6/1/561c9fd7-0e27-4525-94ec-4d2d38f61aa3/TSHT_SBS.htm

Please see the section,

Volume Shadow Copy Services fails, reporting error number 800xxxxx.

There is a also a hotfix with regard to the VSS under Windows Server 2003, the hotfix is 833167 at,

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=833167

It will be included into upcoming Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1. The hotfix is not public and will require a request to Microsoft.

We suggest eliminating other possibilities before trying the patch.

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Document ID: SKB0315
Published on: 28 Jan 2005