Forum Discussion

Marianne's avatar
Marianne
Level 6
5 years ago

Fileserver backup with too many 'Unknown Error'

My turn to ask for advice ....

We have a new NetBackup installation with a large fileserver to be backed up.

Because of status 1 exit codes, Accelerator and Change Journal is disabled, resulting in poor backup performance.

We see way too many files being skipped because of  (WIN32 32: Unknown error) .

Trying to add these files to Exclude List is nearly impossible - there are new ones every day.

I looked for previous posts about this error - there are URLs that no longer exist:
e.g this solution from RiaanBadenhorst : https://vox.veritas.com/t5/NetBackup/Job-Status-1-on-many-polisys/td-p/719014

Any idea on how to troubleshoot / solve this issue?

8.1.2
Windows Server 2016
  • EthanH's avatar
    EthanH
    Level 4
    5 years ago

    It feels so odd to provide tips to the Oracle of NetBackup...

    Are you using DFSR? 

    I changed the link in Riann's post to veritas.com/support/en_US/article.HOWTO65638.html and it redirected to the article on configuring DFSR backups. 

    Any errors in Event Viewer? Maybe a Windows admin has snapshots on the server that are causing NBU issues?

  • Michael_G_Ander's avatar
    Michael_G_Ander
    Level 6
    5 years ago

    Could it be something other than netbackup scaning the file server ?  

    Have seen these Unkown Error and they always are a pain.

    In my experience it is good to start with talking with antivirus person(s), scan on access or qaurantine of the files can gives this Unknow Error. 

    It can also be something like users leaving their documents open, so that they are locked by another process.

    If you havn't already and is allowed excluding ~* might help, as it removes all the temporary files office products creates.

    If the file server contains profiles things like Temporary Internet files or other caches depending used products is worth to exclude if allowed.

    Check there is not some kind of dumps running, even if they most often gives 156 

    Make sure that the shadow area on the file server are big enough for snapshot of all the open files, unfortunately the VSS system has become less informative over the years. 

    A change of the backup window can some times help

    Also think there is some settings to how Netbackup handles open files like how many times it tries to snapshot a open file and how long it waits for the file(s) to be snapshotted.

  • jnardello's avatar
    jnardello
    Moderator
    5 years ago
    Just to check, I'm assuming you've already gotten several policies set up for the fileserver to back up the OS drives/registry & actual fileserver drives separately, right ? And that the regular OS policies are running fine with accelerator, it's just the giant fileserver drive(s) having problems completing ? I would probably recommend sticking with the goal you want to hit (accelerator and change journal) and trying to work towards that, as otherwise you're going to be skipping in-use files outright. Status 1s are usually survivable - not preferred, but given the choice between a successful 3 TB fileserver backup with 5 skipped word docs & a completely failed backup, I'll take the successful one. Once you've got the goal set you can start with the window tuning, VSS tuning (which I assume is needed for the large drive snapshot), policy tuning to break down the giant problem directories into more manageable chunks, and schedule tuning (i.e. grandfather/father/son, etc. ). Initial setups of fileserver policies are painful and it can take more than a few runs before you find a workable solution (gotta love those overnight backups). Best of luck !
    • Marianne's avatar
      Marianne
      Level 6
      5 years ago

      Thanks for all the replies Gents!

      EthanH 
      This is not DFSR, so, the DFSR HOWTO article won't help.
      I have asked the customer to check for Event Viewer errors.
      Will feedback on this.

      Michael_G_Ander 
      Thanks! We have sent the AV team all of the Veritas recommendations. Will ask the customer to check all your recommendations.

      jnardello 
      There are 3 large drives - 37TB, 10TB, 19TB.
      Multiple policies, broken down into multiple streams and staggered to run on different days.
      Our biggest problem with status 1 is that following backups will not apply Accelerator and Change Journal.
      Backups then run for days instead of a few hours.
      The 'Unknown Error' is bugging me - we can deal with 'File in use' or 'Permission Denied' or any other error that makes sense and can be addressed. I don't know where to start or how to eliminate this. Different files every day.
      We will look into VSS tuning, thanks.

      I wonder if anyone is backing up fileservers without VSS snapshots (disabling it in Client Attributes)?

      • Marianne's avatar
        Marianne
        Level 6
        5 years ago

        Just a short update:

        The Veritas Support Engineer shared this TN:
        https://www.veritas.com/content/support/en_US/article.100032194

        So, this and many other wildcard items have been added to Exclude List.
        Backups now complete successfully, but backups are still very slow... (The biggest complaint is that Data Protector backups were MUCH faster.)
        I see in bpbkar log that a LOT of time is spend on evaluating Exlude List (catch-22 ? )

        I have also spent a bit of time to look for 'VSS tuning' info.
        In a 10-year-old forum post, the user claimed that backups are considerably faster for non-VSS backups.

        Our customer confirmed this morning that they were doing non-VSS backups with Data Protector and asked if we could disable snapshot backups in NBU.

        My hesitation with disabling WOFB in Client Attributes is that we could possibly see more skipped files than before, again resulting in status 1 with Change Journal and Accellerator not being used.

        Curious to know what other backup admins are doing on their physical, non-DFSR fileservers w.r.t VSS tuning?
        Does it make a major difference when a separate drive letter is assigned for snapshots?
        (I have realised that the default is to use the same drive with limited space.)

        Thanks again for everyone's assistance.