Considerations and Limitations

This section lists considerations and known limitations in Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 6a.

Infrastructure

• The Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 RESTful API Service, Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 Service and Veeam Backup Proxy for Microsoft 365 Service must be started using the Local System account.
• You cannot change the name of the Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 server or change domains of the server without resetting the configuration.
• System date and time in the UTC format must be the same on all machines with any of the Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 components installed.
• If the organization has multiple domains, they must be configured as a mesh to cross authenticate to download content from all domains with the service account. For more information, see this Microsoft article.

• Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 does not support encryption at-rest for the following types of backup repositories:

• A local directory on a backup proxy server.
• Direct Attached Storage (DAS) connected to the backup proxy server.
• Storage Area Network (SAN).
• Network Attached Storage (SMB shares version 3.0 or later).

• [For Microsoft Outlook] Update channels such as Beta Channel, Current Channel, or Monthly Enterprise Channel are not supported; Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 supports only RTM/GA versions. For more information, see this Microsoft article.
• If the Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 console and a management server are deployed on different machines, make sure that the management server is trusted for delegation. For more information, see this Microsoft article.
• If any of the machines with any of the Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 components have been renamed (or its FQDN has been changed), or any machine has been added to a different domain, then all the components become unavailable to each other. If any of the listed has occurred on a server that acts as a backup proxy server, then such a server becomes Offline in the Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 console. To make a server available, re-add it. For more information, see Adding Backup Proxy Servers.
• IPv6 is not supported for Microsoft Azure China region.
• Adding Microsoft 365 organizations using modern authentication with legacy protocols allowed is not supported for Microsoft Azure China region.
• Adding Microsoft 365 organizations using modern app-only authentication is not supported for Microsoft Azure Germany region.
• Microsoft Teams service is not supported for organizations in the Microsoft Azure China and legacy Germany regions. For more information about Azure Germany, see this Microsoft article.

• Backup of team chats using Teams Export APIs is not supported for Microsoft organizations in the Microsoft Azure China, Germany, US Government GCC and US Government GCC High regions.

• Notifications about backup jobs completion results may not work properly for Microsoft Azure China and Germany regions.
• If you roll back the successful automatic update of the remote Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 Console and PowerShell components, the Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 server will not re-update these components.
• Installing the Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 RESTful API Service on a host machine running Veeam Backup Proxy for Microsoft 365 Service is not supported.

Backup Repositories

• A symbolic link that is configured as a mapped drive is not supported.

• Storage volumes that host backup repositories must be formatted with NTFS or ReFS.
• You should not use 3rd party encryption software for backups in backup repositories as this may lead to unpredictable system behavior and inevitable data loss.
• Primary Storage Hardware Systems both with and without deduplication or compression are only supported for the certified operating systems. Make sure that the operating system you use is included in the Certified for Windows Server list. For more information, see this Microsoft article.
• Software Defined Storage Systems without deduplication or compression are only supported for the certified operating systems. Make sure that the operating system you use is included in the Certified for Windows Server list. For more information, see this Microsoft article.
• Software Defined Storage Systems with enabled deduplication or compression are not supported.
• Based on the format of the used Microsoft JET Database, deduplication backup storage appliances are not supported.
• For Microsoft Windows operating system or other operating systems, the file system internal deduplication is not supported.
• SMB shares version 3.0 are only supported when they are within the Microsoft Exchange Storage definition. For more information, see this Microsoft article.
• If you already backed up team chats using Teams Export APIs, you must not change a backup proxy server where backups are stored to another backup proxy server for which usage of Teams Export APIs for team chats backup is not enabled yet.

Object Storage Repositories

• Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 does not support the $root container in Azure Blob storage.
• Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 does not support Lifecycle policy in Amazon AWS Data Management.
• Make sure the S3 Compatible device you are adding supports AWS S3 Signature Version 4. For more information about authentication requests, see this Amazon article.
• Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 allows you to migrate data from a local backup repository to an object storage repository, but not vice versa. For more information, see the Move-VBOEntityData section of the Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 PowerShell Reference.
• Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 does not support Object Lock for the S3 Compatible bucket.
• Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 does not support the Versioning feature for Amazon S3 buckets, S3 Compatible buckets and Azure storage accounts.

Backup

• To back up user mailboxes, make sure that a mailbox has a valid Microsoft 365 license. Otherwise a backup job will fail with the following error: "Error: Mailbox doesn't have a valid Microsoft 365 license".
• To back up public folder mailboxes, the Veeam Backup account must have a valid Exchange Online license and an active mailbox within the Microsoft 365 organization.
• To back up SharePoint and OneDrive for Business objects, make sure that a user account has a valid Microsoft 365 license with SharePoint plan enabled. Otherwise a backup job will fail with the following error: "User %name% does not have a valid Microsoft 365 license with SharePoint plan enabled".
• Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 backs up public folders that are located under the IPM_SUBTREE folder only.
• Project Web Apps are not supported for backup.
• On-premises service accounts cannot be used for multi-factor authentication.
• Backup of In-Place Hold Items is not supported for on-premises Microsoft Exchange 2013.
• You can select only the root public mailbox when backing up public mailboxes. The child folders of the selected public mailbox will be backed up as well.
• If you modify a retention policy tag for a folder, Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 will perform full synchronization of that folder during the subsequent backup job session. For more information, see this Microsoft article.
• A SharePoint Site Collection hierarchy is not supported if the root site was not configured. Make sure to configure the root site in advance using a SharePoint site template of your choice. Otherwise, the following error occurs: Error: Failed to find web template ID for: STS#-1. This organization account might be missing a valid SharePoint license. Web configuration is not complete.
• SharePoint site collection recycle bin is not supported for backup.
• When backing up Microsoft Exchange mailboxes, Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 does not create a new version of an item if the Read/Unread property of such item was changed. That said, the Read/Unread property of each of the backed-up items always remains exactly the same as it was during the initial backup.

• As part of Microsoft Teams data backup, Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 backs up only the following types of channel tabs: Website, Planner, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, PDF, Document Library, OneNote, SharePoint, Stream, Forms, Power BI, Power Automate (ex Flow) and Azure DevOps.
• When you perform backup of Microsoft Teams data, Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 does not back up the following objects:

• Private and shared channels.
• One-on-one and group chats.

For more information about chats in Microsoft Teams, see this Microsoft article. You can use Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Exchange to explore data from user mailboxes and view chat messages as MSG files.

• Audio and video calls.
• Video recordings saved to Microsoft Stream.
• Contacts.
• Calendar: information about meetings and meeting chats.
• Code snippets in posts.
• Banner notifications in posts.
• Data of applications added as channel tabs (such as Website, Planner, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, PDF, Document Library, OneNote, SharePoint, Stream, Forms, Power BI, Power Automate and Azure DevOps) and other 3rd party applications if their data does not reside in the SharePoint document library of the team.

• Backup of team chats using Teams Export APIs is only supported for Microsoft 365 organizations with modern app-only authentication.
• Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 may not backup OneNote notebooks if their size is more than 2 GB. For more information, see this Microsoft article.
• External SharePoint lists are not supported for backup. For more information, see this Microsoft article.
• Backup of a Microsoft 365 tenant organization is not supported if the initial domain of such organization was changed.
• If a SharePoint item has several versions with identical owshiddenversion values, only the latest version of this item is backed up, all the rest versions are skipped from processing.

Restore

• SharePoint sites with a red X over the symbol mean that there is an empty sector of the template and supported content is available in the subsites.
• Microsoft Teams messages cannot be restored directly back to Teams.

• Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 restores public folders that are located under the IPM_SUBTREE folder only.

• Bulk restore (restore of multiple objects) is not supported for public folder mailboxes. Use the regular per-object restore instead.
• Bulk restore of Exchange mailboxes can be performed to the original location only. Use a single mailbox, folder or item restore if you want to restore such objects to another location.

• To restore In-Place Hold Items or Litigation Hold Items to the original location, consider the following:

• Restore of In-Place Hold Items is not supported for on-premises Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 due to EWS limitations.
• To restore In-Place Hold Items of Exchange 2016/2019 mailboxes, these mailboxes must have In-Place Hold enabled and applied at least once with the DiscoveryHolds system folder creation. Otherwise, restore of In-Place Hold Items will fail with the following error: "Failed to restore In-Place Hold Items. Restore of In-Place Hold Items into Exchange 2013 is not supported".

For more information about enabling In-Place Hold and Litigation Hold, see this Microsoft article.

• Restore of OneNote notebooks from backups of Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft OneDrive for Business and Microsoft Teams data for organizations with modern app-only authentication is not supported.
• Restore of OneNote tabs from backups of Microsoft Teams data may fail with the "Configuration size exceeded. Provided: '4117' bytes MaxAllowed: '4096' bytes" error if the OneNote tab name includes non-Latin or special characters.
• If a SharePoint site includes a hidden list, such list is not displayed in Veeam Explorer for Microsoft SharePoint after a site backup and thus, cannot be restored.
• Before restoring team data using Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Teams or team sites using Veeam Explorer for Microsoft SharePoint for a tenant organization with modern app-only authentication, make sure that a user account used for authorization has access to the root SharePoint site of this tenant organization.

• Restore of an organization data from a backup repository extended with an object storage is not supported if such organization is not added to the Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 infrastructure.

• When restoring team sites, Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 does not restore team site owners or Microsoft 365 group members.

Related Topics

• Backup Infrastructure
• Data Backup and Backup Copy
• Data Restore