Backup of RDS may fail with the error “can not take snapshot, db is in stopped state" error

Backup of RDS may fail with the error “can not take snapshot, db is in stopped state" error

Backup of RDS may fail with the below error:

"(database: >DB  name>) can not take snapshot, db is in stopped state"

This is due to an AWS limitation.

AWS automatically backs up a stopped RDS, so there is no need for manual backups: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/USER_StopInstance.html?shortFooter=true
"Amazon RDS automatically backs up a stopped DB instance. "

If you would try to take a snapshot of a DB in stopped state manually in EC2, it would fail:

“Cannot create a snapshot because the database instance <instance name> is not currently in the available state. (Service: AmazonRDS; Status Code: 400; Error Code: InvalidDBInstanceState; “

In order to overcome this error, please run backups on DBs which are in the running state