Dear Claire,
I think you are not doing anything wrong. It is a problem in VEDA-FE, not you.
In older versions of VEDA-FE (e.g. 4.3.5001), the restart option still works well (I just verified it):
VEDA-FE inserts $SET LPOINT <gdx_name> into the RUN file, and if BRATIO is set small enough, the solver is able to start directly from the previous solution. If there happens to be no changes in the model, the solution is thus obtained immediately.
In more recent versions of VEDA-FE, this option appears to be broken. VEDA-FE no longer inserts $SET LPOINT <gdx_name> into the RUN file, but instead $SET RPOINT <gdx_name>, which is a completely different TIMES feature. That also explains the spurious "Unexpected termination of run" message.
However, in TIMES, there is also a second way of restarting a run from a previois solution: $SET SPOINT 2. But that option is neither supported in VEDA-FE. It seems the whole restart functionality is simply no longer supported by VEDA-FE, because neither $SET LPOINT <gdx_name> nor $SET SPOINT 2 is supported.
As a side point, as LPOINT is utilized also when fixing initial periods to a previous run, one might think that by fixing the initial periods to some year before BOH would do the trick. Unfortunately it doesn't, because when fixing initial periods, the old solution needs to be cleared for the remaining active years (because the new solution must be merged with the old one). So, with respect to restarting, that will not work either.