Challenge
During the rescan of a Protection Group or individual Windows machine, the rescan fails with the error:
Unable to install backup agent: failed to connect to <machine_name> Error: The network path was not found. The network path was not found. (ERROR_BAD_NETPATH).
Cause
This error occurs when the Administrative share (admin$) of the Windows machine being rescanned cannot be reached.
The error code (0x00000035 or 53 in decimal) is relayed by Veeam Backup & Replication from the underlying Windows OS error "Error 53: The network path was not found."
Possible causes include, but are not limited to:
The machine is powered off.
DNS is not resolving the hostname or FQDN to the correct IP.
A firewall is blocking the connection to the ADMIN$ share.
The Windows machine's Server service may be turned off, disabling File and Printer Sharing.
File and Print Sharing for Microsoft Networks is disabled within the NIC configuration.
The ADMIN$ share is not present.
Solution
Review the troubleshooting steps below, remembering to test rescanning the individual machine in the protection group if a section results in changes being made.
