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Unable to perform SSP Backup

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This article is about an error when you perform a back up operation from Central administration or using stsadm command. In my case , I was able to perform back up of individual web applications using Central administration / stsadm . The below given error message was generated and the backup operation was terminated automatically when I include SSP to back up. (eg:- full farm backup. )

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“Stsadm –o backup –directory \\path –backupmethod full” command produces the same error when selecting full farm

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Looking at the backup.log file the error showed something like this

WebException: The remote server returned an error: (503) Server Unavailable.

Debug: at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchApi.RunOnServer[T](CodeToRun`1 remoteCode, CodeToRun`1 localCode, Boolean useCurrentSecurityContext, Int32 versionIn)at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchApi..ctor(WellKnownSearchCatalogs catalog, SearchSharedApplication application) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchSharedApplication.get_SearchApi()at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchSharedApplication.Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.Backup.IBackupRestore.OnPrepareBackup(Object sender, SPBackupInformation args)at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.Backup.SPBackup.RunPrepareBackup(SPBackupRestoreObject node)

Finally I ended up in collecting the Network Monitor trace on the server when performing the back up using stsadm command

From Netmon trace we could see that the server hosting central administration site checks for proxy before performing any HTTP activity . More over we could see that the user agent is not IE but System.Net.AutoWebProxyScriptEngine/2.0.50727.832

This points to use of either OWStimer or stsadm command. It was clear from the Network monitor trace that server needs access to Office Server web services in order to complete the backup . So the error 503 server unavailable was from the proxy server

Resolution:-

1. Login to the server where the central administration site is hosted with the account with which Central administration site’s application pool is running.

2. Remove the proxy settings from the IE session for the user. Log in to the server with all administration users and make sure for all the users the proxy is not configured

3. Modify the central administration’s web.config file to set “proxy autodetect” to “false” ( do this on all servers if you have multiple serves in farm)

<system.net>

    <defaultProxy>

      <proxy autoDetect="false" />

    </defaultProxy>

  </system.net>

4. Reset IIS on SharePoint servers