Backup Exec – Insufficient winsock resources available to complete socket connection initiation

A few months back I encountered this issue which was stopping the backup exec beremote.exe process which is required to backup Virtual Machines.

Insufficient winsock resources available to complete socket connection initiation

The cause

In my case it was a recent Windows Update that caused hundreds of false sockets to be opened within Windows Server. This was happening because the update was conflicting with the iSCSI initiator service.

The solution 

Check your iSCSI initiators and if you have any that are “reconnecting”, they will need to be removed. Delete them and reboot the server.

Note

This has happened on two Windows Server 2012 R2 instances running Backup Exec 15 and 16. On both cases, this solution resolved the issue.

Graham

Graham works closely with VMware & Microsoft solutions. He is a VMware Certified Implementation Expert, 8x VMware vExpert & a VMware User Moderator on the official VMware VMTN forums. Feel free to reach out via Twitter @VirtualG.uk or email: contact@virtualg.uk

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