How to Fix: Veeam Backup & Replication Agent Install Failed

If you’re trying to use Veeam Backup & Replication server to deploy the Veeam Backup Agent on a Windows system, you may receive the following “Service cannot be started” error message in your Windows Application logs in the Event Viewer:

Service cannot be started. Veeam.Backup.Common.CConnectionFailedException: [This server] Failed to connect to Installer service. ---> Veeam.Backup.Common.CConnectionFailedException: [This server] Failed to connect to Installer service. ---> System.Exception: [This server] Failed to discover Installer service. ---> System.Exception: [This server] Failed to check whether remote Installer service is available. ---> System.ApplicationException: The RPC server is unavailable
RPC function call failed. Function name: [GetSvcVersion]. Target machine: [127.0.0.1].
   at VeeamProxyClient.RegenerateCLRException(exception* excBase)
   at VeeamProxyClient.CCliVeeamDeployer.PingService()
   at Veeam.Backup.ProxyProvider.CProxyRawDeployerService.TestConnection(String srvName, CCliVeeamDeployer veeamDeployer)
   --- End of inner exception stack trace ---
   at Veeam.Backup.ProxyProvider.CProxyRawDeployerService.Connect(String srvName, IPAddress[] ips, CCredentials creds, Int32 configPort, Boolean install)
   at Veeam.Backup.ProxyProvider.CPro...

Open Services (Start -> Administrative Tools -> Services), and you may see a service named Veeam Installer Service (technically named “VeeamDeploySvc”). This service got installed after I tried to deploy the agent the first time. The deployment process succeeded partially but did not complete. If this looks like your situation, read on…

The Solution

Reboot your target system. Then deploy the agent from the Veeam Backup & Replication server again. That’s what fixed it for me. (I know…too basic, right?) Knowing this would have saved me about an hour of troubleshooting…

Additional Info

My environment consists of Veeam Backup & Replication 11 (Build 11.0.1.1261 P20220302) running on Server 2008 R2. The target system is also Server 2008 R2. Both are on a domain, and the backup server is running with credentials that have full access to the target system. I also tried deploying the agent with the target system’s firewall turned off. This had no effect.

I searched and didn’t find anything conclusive, but this post gave me an idea that something could be using the port 6160 on my target system: https://pariswells.com/blog/research/veeam-failed-to-connect-to-installer-service

Then I also found this post, which gave me the idea to reboot the target machine: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53351021/failed-to-connect-to-installer-service

In the above post on StackOverflow, the first “Answer” mentioned trying to restart the Veeam Installer Service — I also tried that but the agent install still failed.

So then I finally decided to reboot the target system. That allowed the Veeam Installer Service to startup fresh with port 6160 available. That service uses the following path to the executable (note the port included at the end)

“C:\Windows\Veeam\Backup\VeeamDeploymentSvc.exe” -port 6160

Conclusion

In short, just reboot your target machine if you attempt to deploy the agent and only the Veeam Installer Service gets installed. After the reboot, you can deploy the agent again from Veeam Backup & Replication, and hopefully it will succeed like mine did.

Leave a comment below if you have any questions or to let me know this worked for you. If you’re not a commenter, contact me directly here.

Thanks!