VSS errors backing up an Exchange server with Backupexec after applying Windows and exchange patches

I started getting the following VSS error in Backup Exec after applying Windows and Exchange patches to my Exchange 2010 server:

V-79-57344-34070 - Snapshot Technology: Initialization failure on: "Microsoft Information Store". Snapshot technology used: Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS).

I have tried everything I could find to fix the error including:

Check the VSS writers - all are stable with no errors

restart the exchange services

restart the exchange server

change settings in the Advanced Open File Options on the backup

- Uncheck "Process logical volumes for backup one at a time

- Change the MS Volume Shadow Copy Server option - used both Automatic and System options (the original setting is "Automatically select snapshot tech")

restart the backup server (just in case).

Then I started looking at other log entry errors and I found an Exchange database error that started on the same day I installed the patches.

Exchange Search Indexer failed to enable the Mailbox Database Fac-Staff (GUID = b425945b-ac28-40be-81e5-4ed0ec464ead) after 10 tries. The last failure was: MapiExceptionMdbOffline: Unable to get CI watermark (hr=0x80004005, ec=1142)

Diagnostic context:
    Lid: 1494    ---- Remote Context Beg ----
    Lid: 44215  
    Lid: 60049   StoreEc: 0x8004010F
    Lid: 49469  
    Lid: 65341   StoreEc: 0x8004010F
    Lid: 56125  
    Lid: 47933   StoreEc: 0x8004010F
    Lid: 32829  
    Lid: 49213   StoreEc: 0x8004010F
    Lid: 48573  
    Lid: 64957   StoreEc: 0x8004010F
    Lid: 9518    StoreEc: 0x476     
    Lid: 1750    ---- Remote Context End ----
    Lid: 8434    StoreEc: 0x476     
    Lid: 13362   StoreEc: 0x476     . It will retry after 10 minutes.

I have been researching this error and found that I already tried all the things suggested (see above). The last suggestion was to check the MS Community website. Does someone have any other suggestions? Thank you.