BE Remote Agent for Windows Servers stops after finishing backup - this used to work

[DrJim]

We've been running BE 10.D for several years backing up a small network. The Backup software is running on a Win2003 server. The machines in the network being backed up are all running WinXP SP2. We are also running Symantec Endpoint protection. We do daily differential backups, with a full backup over the weekends. This has been working just fine for years.

About a month or so ago we began having a systematic problem. Unless we reboot each of the computers in the network the backup of that computer fails. The backup software can't find the computer on the network. A little investigation shows that the remote agent is not running.

The remote agent is set to start automatically. So, if we reboot the computers, it is running.

When I check the system event log on each computer, I see an error with a timestamp that matches the time (from the backup log) when the backup of that server ended. The event log entry is EventID 7034 from Service Control Manager. Description: The Backup Exec Remote Agent for Windows Servers service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s).

If we reboot every computer every night before we go home, the backups all proceed normally. If someone forgets to restart a computer, its backup fails.

This has always worked.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Jim

[DrJim]

A follow-up to my own posting.

As I review the event logs for the various computers in my network, and compare that with the backup logs, I find that the problem with the remote agent shutting down at the end of the backup only occurs for backup jobs that are also backing up the system state.

Is anyone familiar with this? Can you explain what is going on?

Thanks
Jim

[pkh]

As a work-around, you can set the BE Remote Agent service to recover automatically

[DrJim]

PKH,

Thank you for responding to my posting. I have implemented your suggestion.

As I study this problem more closely, I realize that there is another thing going on.

Another problem occurs occasionally on many of our computers, but almost always on one of the computers. I just realized today that the problem occurs when Backup Exec it backing up the system state.

When the user logs into her computer in the morning, there is an error message on the screen: "Application popup: Windows - Application Error: The instruction at 0x00c7eff6 referenced memory at 0x015db771. The memory could not be read". When I check the event log, I can see that the message actually popped up during the night, and has been waiting for the user to click OK.

What I realized today, is that the occurrence of this error message correlates with the backup of the System State. The error message occurs at the same time as the backup of the system state is running. And, the first appearance of these error messages occurred when we began backing up the system state on our computers, in March, 2010.

I would think that there should be a solution from Symantec for this problem. Are we the only ones experiencing it?

Thanks,
DrJim