Unable to restore SharePoint farm with Backup Exec - Farm Topolgy appears to be locked and job repeatedly fails

Question

Hi All
I'm attempting a full restore of a SharePoint 2010 farm, single server housed on the same server as the SQL server that holds the SharePoint databases. Backup and restore is via Backup Exec, the backup job was carried out via BE 2012 and the Restore is via
BE 2104. The server I'm attempting to restore to has also been restored by using the system state and a copy of the drives from the original source server - hence its pretty much a clone of the source server.
Irrespective of the account used to run the restore job I'm seeing repeated failures with the error "Unable to lock the Microsoft SharePoint Farm Topology. You must unlock the farm topology and retry the job".
By restoring the admin databases directly by taking a SQL backup of the source databases and restoring these to the server I'm attempting to restore SharePoint to I have succeeded in bringing the SharePoint admin console back to
life, none of the sites are in a locked state, and they can be locked and unlocked both via the admin console or via Powershell. Locking and unlocking the makes no difference.
Any ideas where I can look to from here, could the above error be a cryptic Backup Exec error that doesn't actually mean what it says?

Answer 1

Hi,
Reviewing the DPMRACurr log on the target server during the Date/Time of restore may assist with potential paths to why the job is failing. The logs can be found in the
following path on the target server <DPM Install path>/Program Files Microsoft Data Protection Manager/DPM/Temp
The logs may uncover why we face the current issue. For example the following “ATTACH " – Failed <and also reason why>
Also the DPM server MSDPMCurr log during the Date/Time of restore may also assist with the issue you face. For example the following may be seen “MountDatabaseFailed”
Also note the below process is carried out with the method of restore which was used.
DPM restores the DB to the destination SQL server once the DB is attached, then the restore process is complete and now will be SharePoint front end server connecting to
that DB using the account that was setup with configuresharepoint.exe -enablesharepoint protection. That account needs permissions to connect to that database. The attach phase itself is using the system account from DPMRA process on the local SQL Server.
If you identify the issues are permission related first ensure
the DPMRA service [logon account] has access within SQL for the SQL instance that we are restoring to this account will need DB creator for the following system DB master.
Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread. Regards, Dwayne Jackson II.
[MSFT] This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights."