Symptoms
Assume that some Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) backup operations are running at the same time in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2012, or SQL Server 2014. Additionally, assume that the auto-recovery option is enabled. In this situation, the backup operations are not successful. Additionally, the following event is logged in the Application log:
Source : SQLWriter EventID : 24581 "Sqllib error: System table sys.sysdatabases in SQL Server instance <Server\Instance> is empty."
Note If this event is not logged when the VSS backup operations are not successful, the backup operations issue is not related to the auto-recovery option.
Resolution
The issue was first fixed in the following cumulative update of SQL Server.
Cumulative Update 1 for SQL Server 2014 /en-us/help/2931693
Cumulative Update 8 for SQL Server 2012 SP1 /en-us/help/2917531
Cumulative Update 11 for SQL Server 2012 /en-us/help/2908007
Cumulative update 9 for SQL Server 2008 R2 SP2 /en-us/help/2887606
Each new cumulative update for SQL Server contains all the hotfixes and all the security fixes that were included with the previous cumulative update. Check out the latest cumulative updates for SQL Server:
Status
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.
