After installing updates for Sharepoint on a SBS 2011, you may experience backup failures. The most common error is a problem with Volume Shadow Copy (error 0x800423f0 or 0x800423f3).

The error is occured because updating Sharepoint 2010 is a two-step process. Installing the updates will update the binaries, but you still manually have to update the database by running the database update command.

Update needed?

To determine whether you really need the update, you can run the following command from an elevated Sharepoint 2010 Management shell (available from the start menu):

PS C:> (get-spserver $env:computername).NeedsUpgrade
True
PS C:> 

When the result returns True, the upgrade is needed.

Running the update

To perform the update, you must manually run the following at an elevated command prompt each time you install Sharepoint-updates:

cd \Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\BIN
PSConfig.exe -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -force -cmd applicationcontent -install -cmd installfeatures

The update takes some time, depending on the size of the Sharepoint database. When completed, the update of Sharepoint is ready, and VSS should be able to create snapshots again.

Notice

Sometimes the update process does not start and an error message appears, stating the farm is not responding. This is caused by an unresponsive sharepoint SQL Server instance. If this happens, restart the SQL Server instance through services.msc.