SQL Backup to URL A nonrecoverable I/O error occurred.
Applies to: Azure SQL Server VM, SQL Server 2016 Standard Edition
Date created: February 27, 2021.
Problem Description.
Our backups to URL (to an Azure Storage account) were running fine for the
last 2 years, but all of a sudden we started to see intermittent failures.
All backups failing showed the same error:
A nonrecoverable I/O error occurred on file
"https://storagebak.blob.core.windows.net/containername/DBPROD_2021_01_24_12_45_00.trn:"
The file https://storagebak.blob.core.windows.net/containername/DBPROD_2021_01_24_12_45_00.trn
exists on the remote endpoint, and WITH FORMAT was not specified. Backup cannot
proceed.
A nonrecoverable I/O error occurred on file
"https://storagebak.blob.core.windows.net/containername/DBPROD_2021_01_24_13_15_00.trn:"
The file https://storagebak.blob.core.windows.net/containername/DBPROD_2021_01_24_13_15_00.trn
exists on the remote endpoint, and WITH FORMAT was not specified. Backup cannot
proceed.. SQLAgent - TSQL JobStep (Job 0x54F8BB2B8673604A9886529D8038CD74 : Step
1) SQLSERVERAGENT NT SERVICE\SQLSERVERAGENT 7096 56 2021-01-24 13:15:01.233 5
DBPROD 647690 1 SRVDB
0X010600000000000550000000DCA88F14B79FD47A992A3D8943F829A726066357 NT SERVICE 0
SRVDB COMPANYDOMAIN\SRVDB$ 0 3271 16 1
Workaround/Solution.
We had more than 70,000 backups on that Azure Storage container (https://storagebak.blob.core.windows.net/containername).
We decided to create a new Azure Storage account with a new container, and we
changed our backup jobs to save the backups on the new storage account/container
and the issue was solved. Everything was back to normal.
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