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Martin_W's avatar
Martin_W
Level 2
16 years ago
Solved

Dedupe media going offline

Hi All,

I have a test server backing up about 380GB of data to a dedupe store.  Occasionally the backup runs, but when the backup is verifying, it pauses with a media request dialog and locks up the job.  Further investigation shows that the media it is looking for (OSTxxxxxx) is in the 'Offline Media' Media location.  The documentation defines Offline Media as:

Offline media. This location displays all media that are onsite but are not in devices or slots, or media vaults. Media are automatically moved to this location if you use Backup Exec to remove media from a device or slot. You can add media to the offline location from another media location. To move offline media back to online, run an inventory of the devices or slot, or catalog the media. You cannot delete or rename the offline location.

Since the dedupe store is located on a physical hard drive, I would not expect Backup Exec to 'eject' the media and place it in the offline location.

The only way I've found to get around this is to Inventory the dedupe storage device, after which, the media appears back in the 'Online Media' location.  It is necessary to cancel the running job first in order to get the inventory job to run though, so it's not ideal.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Cheers



Martin

Backup and Recovery
Backup Exec
  • Ben_L_'s avatar
    Ben_L_
    16 years ago
    We've been discussing your issue back and forth today and what it may be is just a defect in the build you are using.  There was an issue like what you described in a previous build then what we (support and in house testers) are using, but it was fixed in later build.  You may have to hang out until the official release for a fix for the issue.

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  • MarkusK's avatar
    MarkusK
    Level 4
    16 years ago
    Hi Martin,

    even if i´m not sure waht you mean with "dedupe"
    it´s always a option to enable debug loggin with beutility.exe and take a look in the debug logs, when the problem occours.

    regards

    markus
  • Aidan_Finley's avatar
    Aidan_Finley
    Level 4
    16 years ago
    Hello Martin -

    Are you using a USB drive for the deduplication store or some other sort of removable disk?  It's possible this could be happening if the disk is USB or or if you are adding/subtracting USB drives on the system.  This could also happen if the you are somehow manually deleting the data out of the dedupe folders (which I don't think you are doing, but have to ask...). 

    If the disk is an internal drive to the server or SAN/iSCSI, can you enable debug logging as Markus suggests and and post a log of  the problem server?

    Thanks,

    Aidan Finley
    Sr. Product Manager, Backup Exec
  • Martin_W's avatar
    Martin_W
    Level 2
    16 years ago
    Hi MarkusK and Aidan,

    Thanks for your replies.  I have enabled debugging as suggested, but it has been behaving itself for the last few days.  I'll let you know if it happens again.

    Aidan, the media server is installed into a VM (VMware) and the dedupe store is located on its own internal SATA vmfs volume, so it's not going offline because of media removal etc.  And, no, I haven't been mucking around with the dedupe store's file structure :)

    Cheers



    Martin
  • Ben_L_'s avatar
    Ben_L_
    Level 6
    16 years ago
    We've been discussing your issue back and forth today and what it may be is just a defect in the build you are using.  There was an issue like what you described in a previous build then what we (support and in house testers) are using, but it was fixed in later build.  You may have to hang out until the official release for a fix for the issue.
  • Martin_W's avatar
    Martin_W
    Level 2
    16 years ago
    Hi Ben, That's great. It's good to know its just an old fashioned bug. Is there any chance of getting an updated build? The one on the beta download page seems to be static and not updated. Is there an RTM release date you can share with us? Thanks for your help. Martin
  • Ben_L_'s avatar
    Ben_L_
    Level 6
    16 years ago
    Getting an updated build is something that is completely out of my hands, but I'm sure some of the guys watching this thread may be able to help out with that.