Forum Discussion

gustav's avatar
gustav
Level 5
12 years ago

Issue with unloading Tapes into use slots in silo

The issue is the silo is moving tapes to incorrect slots

 

  1. Netbackup obtains tape label and position direct from silo when an inventory is ran. The software depends on the silo moving tapes used from the drives back to the same slot it was called from.
  2. Tape once used gives a request to robot to unload drive and move tape back to it’s original slot number. The silo is not doing this. It appears to be trying to move tape to be unloaded back to a slot that is in use. Therefore we are forced to manual unload tape and run an inventory from Master NB server.
  3. The robot always reports that tapes are now in a new slot and not the original.   This means the robot is moving tapes internally to incorrect slots and giving false report on tape location

     4.  This issue only started after the first 36 hours.  During this time no tapes were in use by the installed slots.  Once silo started to use them the problem appeared

 

Quantum say this is a Netbackup issue - I've never seen anything like this - it's causing havoc on our backup system. We are on 7.0.1 - we have two i500s the one that didn't get an upgarde is still operating without issue.

The problem is with the silo where we added 3 drives and 36 more slots.

Backup and Recovery
Configuring
Managing Backup Devices
NetBackup
Troubleshooting
  • Mark_Solutions's avatar
    Mark_Solutions
    12 years ago

    OK - I would try the following:

    Empty the library - making sure no tapes are in drives

    Update the inventory making sure all tapes have dissapeared from the library section of the admin console

    If any remain the right click then and select "Move" and then select StandAlone so that nothing shows as being in the library in NetBackup

    Next re-run the device configuration wizard against the library

    Then re-inventory the library and try again to see if this puts things right

    If it still goes wrong call Quantum and maybe get the latest fireware the the tape library

    Also makes sure you do not have any drivers loaded for the robot in Windows (assuming you are using Windows Media Servers - if you do ten roll them back so the library shows in device manager as an "unknown medium changer" (if you do this you will need to re-boot and re-run the device configuration wizard)

    Hope this helps

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  • Andy_Welburn's avatar
    Andy_Welburn
    Level 6
    12 years ago

    Personally can't see how it can be NB at fault, in that it's essentially the library that tells NB where everything is - any inventory update is basically changing NB's view of where everything is to match what's in the library.

    All I can think is to double check your config just in case new drives are presented incorrectly (but you would probably have had other issues such as failed jobs or incorrectly labelled media).

    Could use robtest 's d' & 's s' to confirm drives & slot occupancy matches NetBackup.

    Any possible manual 'intervention' that could've caused this? e.g. someone manually putting tapes into the library into 'free' slots that are actually occupied by media currently loaded in drives?

  • Nicolai's avatar
    Nicolai
    Moderator
    12 years ago

    2: If someone load free tapes into the robot while tape are mounted, it's possible the new tapes occupy the monted tapes home cell. Umount all tapes - run inventory. This should do the job.

     

  • gustav's avatar
    gustav
    Level 5
    12 years ago

    All our tape loads are done via front Input output slots on I500 - the silo then takes the parttion off line and loads tapes into free slots - once that is done we run the Netbackup inventory.

     

     

  • Mark_Solutions's avatar
    Mark_Solutions
    Level 6
    12 years ago

    If these are Quantum i500 libraries then there is no way they should be doing it - and i do not understand why you load takes using the panel on the library - let NetBackup do it.

    Allocate your number of load port - assume you have already done this and on the front panel make sure that the system setting for manually assigning tapes to partitions is disabled - this can only be done on the front panel.

    All you need to do then it put the tapes into the import slot on the i500 and run an inventory in NetBackup with the option selected to "Empty media access port prior to update"

    This will import the tapes for you and update the inventory.

    Taking the partition off line all the time is not good.

    Try the above method and see if it resolves it for you

  • gustav's avatar
    gustav
    Level 5
    12 years ago

    We still get problems even when loaded and we ran an inventorry.

    After the load yesterday for example we stopped and started Netbackup after the new tapes went in then ran a fresh inventory and we still had the problem overnight.

     

     

  • Mark_Solutions's avatar
    Mark_Solutions
    Level 6
    12 years ago

    OK - I would try the following:

    Empty the library - making sure no tapes are in drives

    Update the inventory making sure all tapes have dissapeared from the library section of the admin console

    If any remain the right click then and select "Move" and then select StandAlone so that nothing shows as being in the library in NetBackup

    Next re-run the device configuration wizard against the library

    Then re-inventory the library and try again to see if this puts things right

    If it still goes wrong call Quantum and maybe get the latest fireware the the tape library

    Also makes sure you do not have any drivers loaded for the robot in Windows (assuming you are using Windows Media Servers - if you do ten roll them back so the library shows in device manager as an "unknown medium changer" (if you do this you will need to re-boot and re-run the device configuration wizard)

    Hope this helps

  • gustav's avatar
    gustav
    Level 5
    12 years ago

    Thanks Mark - it wasn't the hardware - I didn't have to empty the tapes though.

    1) Stop all jobs

    2) Unload all drives

    3) Stop netbackup

    4) Power Cycle silo (forces inventory)

    5) Start Netbackup

    6) Select all tapes in Silo and move to Standalone residence

    7) Re inventory

    Then it all worked!!