A Volume Shadow Copy Service operation failed. Detailed error: The volume shadow copy operation failed with error code 0x800423f0

Windows Small Business Server 2011 randomly started to fail backups.

Backup console shows the following error:
A Volume Shadow Copy Service operation failed. Detailed error: The volume shadow copy operation failed with error code 0x800423f0

First things first, run a "vssadmin list writers" from a elevated command prompt. Output shows this to the be the faulty writer:

Writer name: 'SPSearch4 VSS Writer'
Writer Id: {35500004-0201-0000-0000-000000000000}
Writer Instance Id: {2f53b890-9998-4a18-8859-a5b70b3a56a3}
State: [8] Failed
Last error: Inconsistent shadow copy

This is usually a sign that Sharepoint needs updating (guide here) but upon running the "(get-spserver $env:computername).NeedsUpgrade" in the sharepoint shell I relieve:

(get-spserver $env:computername).NeedsUpgrade 

False

OK, not a sharepoint upgrade then! 

I check the services - all are running. For good measure I restart all the sharepoint services one at a time:

SharePoint 2010 Administration
SharePoint 2010 Timer
SharePoint 2010 Tracing
SharePoint 2010 VSS Writer (this is probably the only one that needed restarting)
SharePoint Foundation Search V4

I also restart the sharepoint SQL service
SQL Server (SHAREPOINT)

Re-run the backup job and voila - working.

A server reboot would probably have done the same.. but my clients don't like reboots during working hours

Windows 8.1 not connecting to domain controller on login

I had a interesting problem recently where a Windows 8 laptop connected to a domain over wireless would login, but then not load the profile as it couldn't authenticate with the domain controller. It would instead, pop up with a username and password box, which if you entered the users details again would sometimes connect and work and other times not.

Very strange, as the system was connected to the wireless without issue and I could ping the server and do everything would expect.

On close examination, i discovered that the wireless network had manged to get itself changed from a "domain" category to a "private".

In the network and sharing center I was unable to change it from a public back to domain so I resorted to using the registry.

The keys are located in:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NetworkList\Profiles

Each folder in the profile key is a different connection - click on them and look for the one called "Category".

The category field defines the connection type:

0 = public
1 = private
2 = domain

I changed it back to a 2 and reboot the laptop - and everything started working again. This solved the problem for 2 days, whereupon the connected then changed to a private network and the same issue occurred again.

This time, i used the wireless network list to forget the network totally and then reconnect from scratch. The system picked it up as a domain connect immediately and this seems to have solved the problem since.

A new one on me :)

Update:
the problem came back! And on further investigation I discovered that the client had managed to re-enable DHCP on their router (instead of their server). This was causing the laptop to automatically go into "public" profile mode. Disabled DHCP on the router and the issue went away. Guess I should have looked at the problem in more detail