Appendable Until: Not Appendable (End marker unreadable)

[tjforce]

Could someone please tell me what this means: Appendable Until: Not Appendable (End marker unreadable) and how to fix it?

[Sagar_Kamat_2]

Thank you for submitting this support query. This error usually appears when a media is full and marked as not appendable by Backup Exec. We suggest you to perform a long erase of the media and observe the results by taking a small backup on the same tape.

[Dipti_Chinchole]

Please update us on the status of the issue.

[tjforce]

I have not tried the long erase as of yet, however, I purchased brand new tapes, never been used, and the first backup I tried I got the same message on 1 of my tapes.

[Abhinav_Bindroo]

Please run a Overwrite job on the suspected tape. Once the job completes, run a Append job and check the Media properties.
If the issue persists run Long Erase on the suspected tape and then perform the backup using the same. Verify the results.

[Vidyaj__Patneka]

Hi,

Kindly update us on the issue.

[Abhinav_Bindroo]

There is no response from the customer within 2 days from the last reply by Veritas

[Don_Pincott]

Hi Guys
This message has two causes as far as I can tell and Veritas needs to URGENTLY fix both of them.

1) If your backup is going to disk:
The message and action is totally inappropriate and confusing.

Veritas need to alter the message to say:
"You have reached the default limit of 100 backup jobs going to the default folders. We have erased the earliest backup job and will start auto-recycling these job numbers to ensure that the more recent backup jobs do not fail.

However, you may also wish to increase the limit under the configuration options. Please note that the default limit of 100 is the combined total if you have multiple backup-to-disk folders".

However, Veritas also need to alter the V10 program to auto-recycle when the limit is reached.

In the meantime, increase the limit whilst waiting for this patch.

2) If you are backing up to tape.
In this case, the message then really means:,

" Whoops! we have a new bug - unlike V9, if you are writting to tape, you may only opt to 'Overwrite Media' - the other two options - 'Add to appendable media before overwriting scratch media etc' and the other similar one do not work correctly - again, perhaps not appearing as an issue until the tape has been fully used".

Veritas also need to sort this bug out.

The fact that V9 had all three working suggests that Veritas has introduced a bug in V10 and is unable to see and read the end of appendable data marker and start recycling tapes and that needs to be fixed.

Alternatively, as a poor second choice, Veritas could gray out these two options leaving only "Overwrite Media", if the destination is to a tape unit.

In the meantime, whilst waiting for a patch, alter your tape backup jobs to "Overwrite" and be happy that at least each tape can hold one (and only one) backup job in future.

p.s. I see there are lot of sites with these issues unresolved, so please pester Veritas to fix these two.

Cheers
Don Pincott

[BartHirst]

So does this mean I can only hold one backup job on each tape? Does that mean I have to switch tapes every single night? Even if the backup job is only a differential from the night before?

[Thomas_Mackey]

I have seen this when the backup engine crashes. It doesn't write and "end of file mark" so it doesn't know where to start appending. When the overwite time is up it will start at the beginning(overwite) of the tape.