I have SS2005 on my development machine. Normally, I don’t need to back up test data, but now that I have started using SourceGear Vault, the source gets stored in the database and therefore I definitely need to do the backups.

I’ve set up backup maintenance plans before for a client, so even though I’m not a DBA, I felt okay doing this.

A week later, I looked at the folder for the backups and was dismayed to see that there was nothing but my initial tests from the week before. I checked to make sure SQL Agent was running, as I remembered that was a problem for me in the past.

I played further with the maintenance plan and today realize that I must have gotten distracted because I didn’t address en error message that is blatant and the reason my backups weren’t happening.

The error is “GUID should contain 32 digits with 4 dashes (xxxx….”. Clearly something internal.

So this time, before I got distracted by an email or a phone call, I googled the error and quickly found that this is a known issue. Here’s a forum thread about the problem which shows a few workarounds and has a pointer to a KB article. Apparently, the SP fix should have meant that I have to install some other tool and not Integration Services, but I don’t see what that is, so I just installed Integration Services anyway, which was quick and easy.

The maintenance plan requires the Integration Services to be installed. If you install them retroactively, as I have done, note that you may need to clear out the jobs and delete and recreate your maintenance plan(s).

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