Error. Custom Online Backup and Recovery Manager MSI failed to create a new backup account or to register the device

Summary

Sometimes backup accounts are not created, hence, machines are not registered in the Dashboard after installing or deploying a custom MSI.

What to do if account is not created

1. Make sure that, after the MSI installation, Windows user was logged out and logged on to the operating system, or the machine was rebooted.

   Logging out from Windows and then logging in (or reboot) is needed for a backup account to be created after MSI installation. This works in such manner because Custom MSI functionality was developed for using GPO deployment, and thecommand GPUPDATE /FORCE requires a reboot.

2. Check if the log file AccountCreatorRunner_vX.X.X.log exists in C:\ProgramData\Online Backup and Recovery Manager\Logs.

   If so, submit the file to Infrascale Support or identify the reason why account failed to be created (explanations are provided below).

Typical causes of errors during account creation

• Default User Quota set during configuration of MSI parameters exceeds the amount of unallocated space available for the Company\Partner\Distributor under which the MSI is created.

  The screenshot shows correct settings when the quota for a new account is set as 50 GB and that is below the Remaining space—142 GB:

  

  As MSI is valid by default during 1 month, the situation may happen that MSI is installed 20 days after it is created. By that time, the Company\Partner\Distributor may have all cloud space allocated so the account will not be created. That is why it is advised to deploy it hereafter the generation.

  The error in AccountCreatorRunner_vX.X.X.log is following:

  ERROR AccountCreator - Attempt to set Entity quota what does not belong to allowed range.
  

  The suggestion is to generate a new MSI with the correct User Quota or increase the Quota for the Company\Partner\Distributor.

• A new backup account username that is generated according to the configured template matches a backup account username existing in our systems.

  The default template is {username}@{domain}.

  

  {username}—will be the Windows user under which MSI is installed.

  {domain}—for the machines not connected to a domain, this will look like PC-NAME.local; so at the each machine the username will be different: John@PC-NAME.local, Sarah@laptop.local

  For machines in a domain, the {domain} will look like mycompany.local or mycompany.com. If it is installed via GPO, every machine will be registered in the Dashboard under the same username, for example, DomainAdminUser@mycompany.local

  It is not required to use exactly {username}@{domain} in the template. The username and email may be literals, that is you can enter john-smith and john.smith@mycompany.com to the indicated fields so that a number of machines, where MSI is installed, will be registered under the same backup accounts (more than five machines is not advisable due to longer time for refreshing local databases).

  Or the username and email may contain both template parts and literals, that is {username}.PartnerName, {username}.EngineeringDep, {username}@{domain}-myorganization.

  Backup account usernames are unique across Cloud Backup. If the current Windows username is “User”, or “Admin”, or something like that, there is a very high possibility that such username already exists in Cloud Backup. Hence, the backup account will not be created, and AccountCreatorRunner_vX.X.X.log will contain the following error:

  ERROR AccountCreator - Password cannot be empty
  

  It does not mean directly that the password is empty. But it points to the fact that there is an account with the same username under another entity (Company/Partner/Distributor), so the system finds the account, but cannot retrieve its credentials to use them for logging into OBRM installed with MSI.

  The suggestion is to enter/add a unique name for Username Template.