Backup Duplicate to tape will never complete.

[luke88]

Hey all,

I've done a lot of searching about this issue however I can't appear to find a fix.

Some details:

We're running server 2008 r2

Backup exec 2010 R2 Ver 13.0

The issue is that we have 2 backups running for a client, a backup to disk job then a duplicate to tape job

however the backup to disk complete's but the duplicate to tape will just sit in the running state and never complete. The byte count will climb higher than the byte count shown for the backup to disk.

The backup to tape will never complete and will cause the next nights backups to fail because they will miss their scheduled time window.

when I cancel the duplicate job it just gets stuck, and I need to restart the services for it to cancel correctly.

Any help would be good also let me know if you need more details?

[Kiran_Bandi · Accepted solution]

Is it a standalone drive?

Do you have eject media after the completion of the job option selected?

If yes remove that option and check...

Regards...

[luke88]

Kiran

The tape Drive is a HP Ultrium 4-SCSI

Yes " Eject media after completion" was ticked, I have unticked this option, I'll let the backups run over night and will post here tommorow if it is resolved and or ongoing,

Cheers

Luke

[Sush---]

In case if you want to use that option of "Eject Media after completion" and also wants the job to be completed successfully then go to Alerts>> Configure Alert Category

Select Media Remove Alert and then select the option of "Automatically respond to alert after " = " 2 minutes".

Also select Respond with "YES"

Thanks,

-Sush...

[luke88]

Hello All

The backup completed last night with out getting hung.

However I still would like the tape to eject after the job completed but not cause the job to become stuck.

Is there a way that I can create another job to just eject the media and set it to do this after the duplicate job has finished.

Regards

Luke

[Kiran_Bandi]

If the drive is capable of ejecting media automaticlly, it could have ejected while the option " Eject Media After completing the backup job" selected. As it is not ejecting, even if you create a utility job to eject media from drive, it will not eject i guess.

Refer to http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH5280

Regards........

[pkh]

Luke -

You don't have to create a seperate job to eject the tape.  Just check the Eject After Job Complete option.  What you need to do is to follow Sush's instructions to set up an auto-response to the alert asking you to remove the tape.  When you don't respond to the alert, the job will not end.

[Kiran_Bandi]

Job will complete with auto response. But will the tape come out of tape drive?

[Sush---]

Yes the tape will come out to the mouth of the tape drive. If the Auto response is not set the job will not be completed till the tape is physically removed completely out of the tape drive.

With the Auto response the tape will be at the mouth of the tape drive and the job will be completed.

Thanks,

-Sush...

[pkh]

Why not? Why do you think the option is called Eject ....?

[Kiran_Bandi]

K thanks for the information sush...

But still some standalone drives are not capable of ejecting tape automatically. (Not aware of the particular drive OP mentioned, that may be capable of ejecting). In that case if the eject option checked and auto response configured no use. Am i correct?. 

Thanks...

[CraigV]

...that's a first. I've been around drives from SDLT days and they have always ejected from then! HP, Sony, Quantum etc.

Which drives don't automatically eject?

[Kiran_Bandi]

"It should be noted that all standalone Travan tape drives and many digital linear tape (DLT) tape drives are designed for removal of the media manually. There is an Eject button on these drives and a software command to eject the media (from Backup Exec (tm) or other applications) will result in a hardware failure error."

I didn't got chance to work with any DLT or SDLT tape drives. In fact i never worked with stanalone drives. The above quote is from Symantec Tech Note not my own experience. 

Thanks for the comments....

[pkh]

It is obvious that the OP does not have a problem ejecting tape using the Eject so your concern is misplaced.

If you do not have personal experience with stand-alone tape drives, perhaps you should refrain from advising other users.