"List(key) returned error" when backing up to mapped smb drive from windows

Getting Help
1

I just set up restic through backrest and ran into a problem…

I have a local Windows PC with backrest & restic installation and a shared smb drive. The remote drive was mapped to S:// using windows file manager.

My restic version:

PS C:\Users\username> .\AppData\Local\Programs\Backrest\restic.exe version
restic 0.18.0 compiled with go1.24.1 on windows/amd64

using Backrests GUI, I created a repository with the following settings:

{
  "id": "RepoID",
  "guid": "...",
  "uri": "S:\\path\\to\\backup",
  "password": "...",
  "env": [],
  "flags": [],
  "prunePolicy": {
    "maxUnusedPercent": 10,
    "schedule": {
      "clock": "CLOCK_LOCAL",
      "cron": "0 12 * * 6"
    }
  },
  "checkPolicy": {
    "readDataSubsetPercent": 50,
    "schedule": {
      "clock": "CLOCK_LOCAL",
      "cron": "0 12 * * 0"
    }
  },
  "autoUnlock": false,
  "hooks": []
}

My Plan config:

{
  "id": "PlanID",
  "repo": "RepoID",
  "paths": [
    "D:\\"
  ],
  "excludes": [],
  "iexcludes": [],
  "schedule": {
    "clock": "CLOCK_LOCAL",
    "cron": "0 22 * * *"
  },
  "backup_flags": [],
  "retention": {
    "policyTimeBucketed": {
      "yearly": 0,
      "monthly": 12,
      "weekly": 0,
      "daily": 30,
      "hourly": 24,
      "keepLastN": 0
    }
  },
  "hooks": []
}

Upon the first (manual) test run, I receive the following errors:

[repo-manager] 08:30:56.534Z	debug	repo orchestrator starting backup	{"repo": "RepoName", "repo": "RepoName"}

[restic] 

[restic] command: ["C:\\Users\\username\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\Backrest\\restic.exe" "snapshots" "--json" "-o" "sftp.args=-oBatchMode=yes" "--tag" "plan:PlanName,created-by:MyPC"]

[restic] List(key) returned error, retrying after 1.186618988s: GetFileInformationByHandleEx S:\path\to\backup\keys: Der angegebene Server kann den angeforderten Vorgang nicht ausführen.

... those messages reoccur with different timeouts ...

[restic] {"message_type":"exit_error","code":1,"message":"Fatal: GetFileInformationByHandleEx S:\\path\to\backup\\keys: Der angegebene Server kann den angeforderten Vorgang nicht ausführen."}

[tasklog] 08:44:40.671Z	error	backup for plan "PlanName"	task failed	{"error": "failed to get snapshots for plan: get snapshots for plan \"PlanName\": command \"C:\\\\Users\\\\username\\\\AppData\\\\Local\\\\Programs\\\\Backrest\\\\restic.exe snapshots --json -o sftp.args=-oBatchMo...\" failed: exit status 1\nOutput:\nList(key) returned error, retrying after 1.186618988s: GetFileInformationByHandleEx S:\\path\\to\\backup\\keys: Der angegebene Server kann den angeforderten Vorgang nicht ausführen.\n... 3152 bytes truncated ...\n", "duration": 824.1376919}

Has anybody encountered this problem?

2

I know backrest bundles a version of restic, but I would suggest to please reach out on their GitHub repository either in an issue or a discussion :slight_smile:

4

I tested the whole process with the official restic binary and it produced the same errors. Here are the details:

First, i downloaded the binary from github:

PS C:\Users\username\Downloads> .\restic_0.18.0_windows_amd64.exe version
restic 0.18.0 compiled with go1.24.1 on windows/amd64

The next step was the init of a repo:

PS C:\Users\username\Downloads> .\restic_0.18.0_windows_amd64.exe init --repo S:\path\on\remote\drive\backup_test\
enter password for new repository:
enter password again:
created restic repository f0c5bf5e05 at S:\path\on\remote\drive\backup_test\

Please note that knowledge of your password is required to access
the repository. Losing your password means that your data is
irrecoverably lost.

And then i ran a backup:

PS C:\Users\username\Downloads> .\restic_0.18.0_windows_amd64.exe -r S:\path\on\remote\drive\backup_test\ --verbose backup 'D:\Dokumente\folder_to_be_backed_up\'
open repository
enter password for repository:
List(key) returned error, retrying after 694.424355ms: GetFileInformationByHandleEx S:\path\on\remote\drive\backup_test\keys: Der angegebene Server kann den angeforderten Vorgang nicht ausführen.

... This repeats several times with increasing intervals ...

After pressing Ctrl+C:

wrong password or no key found. Try again
enter password for repository:                                                                                          signal interrupt received, cleaning up
context canceled

It seems as if this is unrelated to backrest. I also tried to backup to a repo on my local disk, which worked fine (using restic and backrest).

5

@whale
agree with your observation. Here is the relevant error:

List(key) returned error

Is the repository key file present? Verify the content of this folder, there should be one key file present:

S:\path\on\remote\drive\backup_test\keys

Also, which version of windows and smb protool do you use?

p.s. I made a test repo in Windows with restic 0.16.4 on a SMB 3.1.1 share but could not reproduce your error.

6

Hi all, I’m having a similar issue with restic but using a different setup:

I’m using restic on Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS

restic version
restic 0.18.0 compiled with go1.24.1 on linux/amd64

Restic is backing up from the Ubuntu machine to a rclone Union consisting of multiple Microsoft Onedrives.

From one day to another (Jun 6th 2025 to Jun 7th 2025) I ran into the issue, that restic fails backing up with “Error 1”. Digging deeper I found out - no matter what restic command I would like to run - I get the following error:

Load(<key/9e74exxx81>, 0, 0) returned error, retrying after 1.084817419s: <key/9e78exxx81> does not exist
Load(<key/9e74exxx81>, 0, 0) returned error, retrying after 2.686743445s: <key/9e74exxx81> does not exist
Load(<key/9e74exxx81>, 0, 0) returned error, retrying after 5.727752011s: <key/9e74exxx81> does not exist
Load(<key/9e74exxx81>, 0, 0) returned error, retrying after 10.461167972s: <key/9e74exxx81> does not exist
...

after pressing CTRL+C it prints:

  signal interrupt received, cleaning up
Fatal: wrong password or no key found

The key file exists on one of the Onedrives and the SHA256 sum equals the filename. Moreover I can access this file via rclone, therefore I do not assume rclone being the reason for the error:

rclone ls onedrive_union:MACHINEXXX/storage/Backup/keys
      448 9e74exxx81ad6c685e29be0a2232feb6f35fbcb1a64b723d677b24788cbb03d2

I was wondering if the different filename compared to the filename of the key in the error message might cause the problems, but using a copy of the key with the shortened filename does not solve the problem.

At the moment I’m backing up the machine using an external harddrive I store outside my house, but this cannot be a permanent solution.

Since I’m struggling with this problem since more than a month now, and I could not find any solution up to now any hints are highly appreciated.

7

Yes, there is exactly one key file in this folder.

I’m running Windows 11 Pro, Version 24H2. Regarding the smb-protocol:

PS C:\Users\username> Get-SmbConnection

ServerName                        ShareName  UserName           Credential         Dialect NumOpens
----------                        ---------  --------           ----------        ------- --------
server.address.de                 ShareName1 PC-Name\username   PC-Name\username  3.0     3
server.address.de                 ShareName2 PC-Name\username   PC-Name\username  3.0     1

I had a short conversation with a colleague regarding this issue. He is using the same servers and ran into the same issue with restic. He’s now using restic inside a vera-crypt container on the smb-share, which seems to work well. According to him, the problem is a restricted file-lock-policy on the server.

Best regards!

8

GetFileInformationByHandleEx is used by the Go standard library when listing the contents of a folder. Basically your server is unable to list the contents of a directory that was opened via a file handle.

Relevant code snippet:

d, err := os.Open(dir)
// ...
sub, err := d.Readdirnames(-1)

In case you’re no Go programmer, that’s the simplest possible way to list the directory contents in Go. So it looks like the server is completely unusable with any Go program.

9

How exactly are you calling restic for the backup? Do you use the rclone backend?

10

I’m calling restic via a script:

…

PASSWORD=/pathtopw/password.txt

CACHE=/pathtocache/

EXCLUDE=/pathtoexcludes/excludes.txt

export REMOTE=rclone:onedrive_union:MACHINEXXX/storage/Backup 
...

restic -v -r $REMOTE -p $PASSWORD --cache-dir $CACHE backup $SOURCE --exclude-file $EXCLUDE
...
11

Does

rclone copy onedrive_union:MACHINEXXX/storage/Backup/keys localpath

work? You can also try using the latest version from GitHub - rclone/rclone: "rsync for cloud storage" - Google Drive, S3, Dropbox, Backblaze B2, One Drive, Swift, Hubic, Wasabi, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Blob, Azure Files, Yandex Files .