BE 2012: Job only completes after manual tape eject

[MIXIT]

Hello all :) I have BE 2012 running on some customer environments.  I keep the versions the same and updated, and since all my customers have similar environments (usually a single physical 2008 R2 server with 1 or more 2008 R2 Hyper-V VMs), the types of backup jobs I create are basically identical. 

The backup jobs are always set to Eject the tape when done.  I also have email alerts configured to let me know whent he backup is done - typically I log in in the morning and see them in my inbox, timestamped for when the job completed.  

Yet for some reason, with one customer, the backup job will never indicate as completed until the tape is ejected, but the tape is extremely inconsistent in how it ejects.  Some days it ejects, other days the user has to do it. I only recieve my alert email once the tape is ejected, and the alert email is timesetamped for the moment the tape comes out, not when the job finishes.  I guess that part is normal. 

So is there anything in BE I should be looking to do to figure this out, or should I just focus on hardware?  The tape drive is a LTO3 internal - new however as of last year.  Dell server and drive.  Maybe the drive needs a firmware update but obviously if there is anything in BE I can do to troubleshoot or view logs or something I'd weant to do that too. 

Thanks for any help you can give. 

[Colin_Weaver · Accepted solution]

Basically when you setup a job to eject tape at end of job the tape is ejected but on a stand alone drive then remains resting half in and half out of the drive.

An alert is then provided in the Backup Exec console to remind the user to actually go and physically remove the tape

Only when you acknowledge the alert is the job recorded as finished (because the eject is part of the job)

You can set autoresponses on the alerts to affect whether or not a human has to actually respond to it but at the end of the day something or someone  has to respond to the alert for the job to complete.

I suspect in some of your configurations someone is responding to the alert, and maybe in others the autoresponse is setup and the combination of these two (plus no response at all) might explain the intermittent results.

[MIXIT]

That's a great point.  I may very well have configured autoresponse on others in the past and just forgotten about doing it (and the availability of the feature too).  I'll check into it now and see what happens when the backup completes overnight.  Will post confirmatio9n here. 

Thanks! 

[MIXIT]

I was Googling how to do this, then I saw this thread from 2012:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/backup-exec-2012-media-remove-autoresponse-not-possib...

Basically you have to jump through a bunch of hooops to make this work and who knows it that workaround will function after an upgrade to 2014.  I hate criticizing development teams because I know they have a lot of pressures, and if they're stuck in a company that has the wrong set of priorities then it makes for a frustrating experience but damn, I mean this is obviously one of the most common issues anybody running a server in a small business envirorment with a tape drive would run into.  Letting it go for years without resolution just says way too many bad things about how Symantec handles customer needs in a product.  I hope the split into two companies results in positive change, because it is really needed. 

Thanks Colin, people like yourself are what keeps me coming back. 

[MIXIT]

Oh and BTW, I definitely did not do this process to configure any kind of autoresponse for media removals in the past, so the fact that it appears to work properly on another customer site might only be that they routinely always switch the tape first thing in the morning.  I bet if they didn't take it out, the job done notice would come in later.  I'm going to test :)

Any idea of BE 2014 imrpoves on this siutation? 

[SSR_7767 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

This works the same way in Backup Exec 2014. When you are using a Stand Alone Tape Drive, the tape would be ejected only the Media Remove alert is responded with YES.

You will have to configure automatic response to Media Remove Alerts with YES. The least time frame that you can set it to is 1 minute.

So the tape would be ejected after a minute and the job would also be complete.

The following link is for Backup Exec 2010 - How to configure automatic responses to media alerts.

http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO22882

The principle would be the same with Backup Exec 2012 and 2014, only the navigation is bit changed.

Click on the Backup Exec button>> Configuration & Settings >> Alerts & Notifications >> Alert Categories.

Select the Media Remove alert and set to respond automatically with YES after 1 minute.

This would help you in completing the backup jobs immediately.

[MIXIT]

Funny enough, I realize in retrospect I had never configured this anywher.  And after some monitoring, I also realize all of my customers using BE have their backup jobs not complete until the tape is taken out completely.  On one BE 2012 server I set the alert option as discussed in this thread, restarted the BE services, but nothing changed.  I recall reading in another thread that just restarting the services isn't enough, yo9u actually need to reboot the server.  I haven't done that yet but will soon.  Just the same, thanks guys for your help and information.