Unable to open NTFS backup streams, security attributes may not be preserved.

Error code	Product	Applies to
BA4010	BackupAssist	BackupAssist v5.3 and later

Description

The selected files will be backed up, but the data streams for those files could not be opened and will not be backed up. This means information in those streams will not be included in the files when they are restored. The NTFS security attributes data stream is the most notable because it contains a file's security attributes, which will not be restored with the file. These attributes can be manually reapplied to the file after the restore.

Resolution

There are 3 possible resolutions for this problem

Resolution 1 – Check the Backup User Identity's permissions

Check that your Backup User Identity has been set and has the required access. To view your current Backup User Identity, select the Settings tab > Backup User Identity and you'll see the following dialogue box appear.

Note: For BackupAssist 10.4.2 and earlier, the Backup User Identity is used for all backup jobs and the account may have been created with custom access levels. For 10.4.3 and later, a Backup User Identity is only required for Jobs that have a NAS destination or the SQL add-on, and in these cases, the Backup User Identity should be a member of the Administrators group.

What to check

• For BackupAssist 10.4.2 or earlier - check that the account is still selected, enabled and has the required access.
• For BackupAssist 10.4.3 and later, check that the account is still selected, enabled and a member of the administrators group.
• To check the permissions properly, you can log into the backup server using the Backup User Identity account and check that you can read and write to the backup destination without any authentication requests or errors.
• If backup account's password is changed in Windows, it will need to be changed in BackupAssist.

To learn more, see Backup user identity

Resolution 2 - Check if the NTFS information has been locked by another process

The NTFS information associated with the files is locked by another process and cannot be accessed by BackupAssist correctly.

To resolve this the following can be checked:

• Find which process is locking the file and configure it to release the file these during the backup window.
• Change the time the backup runs to make sure there is no conflict between the two processes.

Resolution 3 - If NTFS permissions are not required

If NTFS data is not required, BackupAssist can be configured to exclude this information from the backup. This will remove the warning from the backup report as well.

To turn off copying the NTFS security attributes or alternate data streams, follow the steps below:

For File Protection Jobs

1. Select the backup job on the Manage screen.
2. Select Edit from the top menu.
3. Select Replication Options from the options on the left.
4. From Copy NTFS security attributes and alternate data streams select For backups of VSS applications.

To learn more see Manage : Replication Options

For File Archiving Jobs

1. Select the backup job on the Manage screen.
2. Select Edit from the top menu.
3. Click on Zip Options down the left hand side.
4. Tick Suppress NTFS streams warnings.

To learn more see Manage : Zip options

Last updated	Created	Further assistance
07th Aug 2015	10th Jul 2009	BackupAssist Support page