Backup Exec 12.5 intermittantly hangs on back ups/byte count stops

[RobbieTheK]

Running BE 12.5 rev 2213, all updates installed. Byte count on both the tape and hard drive have not incremented in a day from 200,800,142,622 (bytes). This happens from time to time. A reboot of the server usually fixes it. I restarted the BE services with ServicesMgr.exe and same thing happens. No media alerts to remove a tape (as per this thread). Tape drive is an HP LTO Ultrium-2. I read someone upgraded their SAS controller driver but I'm not sure if that'd help me.

[ZeRoC00L]

What OS is your BE media server running ?

Did it work in the past ?

[Larry_Fine]

Is this a network backup or a local backup?  In other words, is data flowing across the ethernet to get to the Backup Exec server?  Might your problem be at the source?

Make sure that your tape drive and HBA firmware is up to date.  Make sure that your HBA driver is up to date.

Make sure that your HBA is NOT a RAID HBA, unless it is on the short approved list.  The list is at http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH70907

[RobbieTheK]

windows 2003 all updates have been inatalles, yes over the network. and yes it works for a few weeks then only reboot fixes the problem.

[lmosla]

Hello,  Are you using Symantec drivers on your tape drive?

[RobbieTheK]

I don't think they are Symantec drivers how do I tell? Also note that this is happening with 2 simultaneous jobs 1 going to tape and 1 to disk and both stop at the exact byte count so that probably rules out a HBA driver problem.

[pkh]

I don't think they are Symantec drivers how do I tell?

Go to the Windows Device Manager and take a look at the tape drive, it should be using a Symantec driver.

[RobbieTheK]

The tape driver is HP LTO Ultrium-2 drive, file version 1.0.6.3 but keep in mind I'm reporting that the backup to tape and backup to USB drives are stalling.

[Larry_Fine]

Also note that this is happening with 2 simultaneous jobs 1 going to tape and 1 to disk and both stop at the exact byte count so that probably rules out a HBA driver problem.

Do both the disk job and the tape job hang at the exact same byte count?  IE, both hang at 123,456,789 bytes?  and they are backing up the same source?

Is it the same byte count the next time it happens a few weeks later?

Is so, that really sounds like the problem is at the source.

If you are backing up the same thing to disk and to tape at the same time, you may want to stagger that a bit so both jobs aren't hitting the same source at the same time.   You may be running into a locked resource or open file/db or something.

[RobbieTheK]

Yes I mentioned that both jobs stop at the same byte count already. Yes a few weeks later same thing.

Note over the weekend another different job ran correctly and it backed up a different source (of files) and saved to a different external USB.

Where can I look for logs on locked resource/files? And there is a 3 hour difference in time, i.e., the tape backup starts at 11:00 PM and the USB starts at 1:00 AM.

[RobbieTheK]

I made sure to push all of the latest updates to the agent. After reboot the jobs ran ok twice. Now one is stuck in "Snapshot Processing" and the other is stuck at 205,021,799,273 bytes so both jobs seem to get stuck at the same time but this time for a different reason. I scoured the Windows event logs for anything related to VSS but nothing pops up Here are some warnings/error, hoping for some clues here:

1)      The shadow copies of volume D: were deleted because the shadow copy storage could not grow in time.  Consider reducing the IO load on the system or choose a shadow copy storage volume that is not being shadow copied.

2)      Scope, 10.0.225.0, is 85 percent full with only 14 IP addresses remaining.

3)      Could not scan 1 files inside D:\Symantec Endpoint\Symantec_Endpoint_Protection_SBE_12.1_RU1_MP1_Part1_Installation_Software_EN\SEPM\Packages\SAVLegacy32.dat due to extraction errors encountered by the Decomposer Engines. Application has encountered an error. For more information, please go to: http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/servlet/ProductMessages?product=SAVCORP&version=12.1.2015.2015.seps...

4)      The DNS server has encountered numerous run-time events. To determine the initial cause of these run-time events, examine the DNS server event log entries that precede this event. To prevent the DNS server from filling the event log too quickly, subsequent events with Event IDs higher than 3000 will be suppressed until events are no longer being generated at a high rate.