Backup is failing with elevator service is missing error in Comet Backup

Symptoms

• Backup jobs fail immediately after starting with the log entry:

  The elevator encountered a problem: exit status 1

• The Comet Backup (elevator service) is missing from Windows Services (services.msc).

Cause

Third-party antivirus or EDR security software detects the elevator executable as a false positive and deletes or quarantines it.

Comet Backup relies on two background services to execute operations on Windows:

1. Delegate Service (backup.delegate): Manages job schedules, UI communication, and standard file tasks.

2. Elevator Service (backup.elevator): Performs high-privilege operations, such as creating Volume Shadow Copy (VSS) snapshots.

This error occurs when the delegate service attempts to hand off high-privilege tasks to the elevator service, but the elevator service cannot be found or started.

Resolution

1. Review Antivirus / EDR Logs - Check the VM's security software (e.g., Windows Defender, SentinelOne, etc.) for recent quarantine events involving backup-tool.exe. Whitelist the backup-tool.exe and the installation folder path to prevent the security software from deleting the service executable again. Additional details can be found here: https://docs.cometbackup.com/latest/troubleshooting/#antivirus-detects-comet-backup-as-a-virus-or-malware
2. If the target host is still communicating with the Comet Management Console, trigger a remote agent update/reinstall directly from the web console.
3. Run a manual Installation - If the remote deployment does not restore the service, locate the backup agent installer package on the host. If you cannot find it, generate a new one from your Comet Server.
4. Open services.msc and verify that both backup.delegate and backup.elevator are listed and set to running.
5. Run a test backup job to confirm the issue is resolved.