Backup Exec 12.5 services keep stopping

[SystemsAdminAS]

Folks,

Need some help identifying why Backup Exec-related services keep stopping unexpectedly.  We have been using 12.5 for about a year, an have not had any issues until recently.  We typically do a GFS tape scheme that runs overnight during work days, and lately the backups have not been firing.  When someone looks in the morning, the management console reports that the Backup Exec services have all stopped.  There is nothing in the Windows event log that points to a reason, nor in the Backup Exec alerts (other than that the services stopped).

The only major changes to this particular Win 2K3 box have been Windows Updates, and it is also our main SQL server for our ERP system.  It has not experienced other issues with uptime, though we are having a similar issue with Automate 7 (for running reports and ERP processes overnight) that its shceduled events are also not firing.  In its case, its service does not hang or stop unexpectedly, whereas Backup Exec's are.

I can manually restart the services through the interface fine,and manually running the updates executes as they are supposed to, but the services consistently stop at some point before the next backup job.

Also, a recent Win2K3 update for SQL Server SP3 was not succeeding to install, and we traced it to an incomplete install of SQL Server Express SP3 initiated by Backup Exec on its default BACKUPEXEC instance.  After repairing this instance and continuing the delayed install, the update went through fine.  This did not seem to affect the services issue.

Any thoughts on what might have caused the issue and how to resolve?  I have run LiveUpdate to obtain the most current fixes an this has not corrected the issue.  I am currently running a repair operation but need to reboot first which will wait until after hours in the evening to test tonight's backup run.

Regards,

Erik

[cjmorgant110]

How interesting, I am experiencing the same issue.  I have a BE 12.5.2213/64 bit installed on Windows 2008 server (std).  Just set it up, installed fine, ran a backup last night/test restore this a.m..  Ran Windows update this morning and Security Update for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 (KB970892) failed with the following info:

Installation date: ‎10/‎28/‎2009 9:48 AM
Installation status: Failed
Error details: Code 80246007
Update type: Important

A security issue has been identified in the SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 that could allow an attacker to compromise your system and gain control over it. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

Then the backup exec services started stopping randomly...for no reason.  I think it's because SQL is also stopping.  We do need to reboot this box and will do that tonight to see if that clears things up.  I also can't launch the Backup Exec GUI...it also crashes and live update is failing on hotfixes 334278, 329867.

Also have a SQL 2005 standard instance on this box runing Accounting package and BI tools.

Will let you know if the

[paddygav]

We had this problem for a short time too. We narrowed it down to running out of disk space  on the host server. The tricky part was that it only ran out of disk space while the back up was occuring, so just enough of the C: drive was getting used during the nightly back up to trigger this problem, then in the morning there was no indication of why the backup system failed. We were able to nail it down by looking at Nagios logs, which reported the time at which the disks went crazy, and the time the event log said Symantec shut down.

[cjmorgant110]

I appreciate the response, no backups are running.  Right before services stopped, Live Update service started, so I think it's a hotfix application gone bad.  I'm able to connect to the server from an admin console on another server (media server's crashes when I try to launch it).  I'm hoping the reboot will fix it.  This is a brand new server, 49 GB free on C:\  over 200 GB free on data drive.  I'm fairly certain that it was Live Update that stopped the services.  Ant Hotfixes 334278 & 329867 are failing to apply currently.

Will update after rebooting server tonight.

C.J.

[cjmorgant110]

Ok, so rebooted the server last night, the GUI on the Win 2008 media server now comes up.  Applied the SQL 2005 SP3 hotfix, rebooted again and manually applied hotfix 334278.
Got another message this morning around 1:30 am that services stopped, but this time I put myself on the list to be alerted for Live Update informational alerts and the Service was stopped by Live Update which ran successfully and applied hotfix 329867 (which it failed on yesterday).
So I think the issue of the server being in flux between Microsoft updates ( I had to reboot server to complete one of those updates) had the BE GUI and Live Update all in a funk.

C.J.

[SystemsAdminAS]

CJ,

We have a similar installation as you - same issue with that same update I believe.  A few days ago I was able to clear up the service stopping issue with a repair of Backup Exec through add / remove programs.  HOWEVER, this seems to have tanked the Desktop / Laptop Option (DLO) installation.  The clients were all disabled due to an 'incorrect configuration' server-side.

After finding nothing server-side obviously wrong, decided to clean out existing settings and start fresh.  The issue then comes up when trying to specify a Network Location for backups - as soon as a path is specified, BE complains it can't find XPDLOShareu.dll, though the file is certainly where the registry says it should be.  Looking for a way to fix this, will try another repair tonight...

[SystemsAdminAS]

Looks like repair does no good - still looking for any suggestions...

[ltjimster]

I had problems for about 2-3 weeks with the services kept randomly stopping or when i logged of the server which was resovled by running the BEUTILITY.exe in C:\program files\symantec\backupexec and re-enter your administrator details for the services.

But it then kept stopping the services after so long of running a backup, which i found out was a Windows Update trying to install at the same time as the backup Exec, so i just set the windows updates to notify me but dont download or install them. No problems since, well with services stopping anyway.

Hope this helps

Thanks
James

[DominikG]

Most problems with stopping services are caused by corrupted .NET framework installations.
Just try du uninstall and then re-install .NET Framework.

best regards

Dominik

If this answers your question or solves your problem, I would appreciate if you mark my post as the solution. Thank you!

[SystemsAdminAS]

ITJim - the problem was indeed tied to SQL Server updates at least partially - there were security updates that refused to install, and tracing the error code in WindowsUpdate.log (as in my original post), it seems that more than just that original hotfix was not installing.  Repeating the process seems to have allowed it to install properly.

Also, originally I had installed the BKUPEXEC instance via SQL Server 2005 Standard, which exists on this machine already.  Symantec tech support suggested reinstalling the db as a 2005 EE instance instead, which worked OK.  These were the steps I went through in doing so:

******************************

(1)    Shut off BE services and SQL services related to BE instances

(2)    Backed up SQL folders for BE instances

(3)    Did a change/remove on SQL Server 2005 for BE instances, removed them

(4)    Reboot

(5)    Did a complete uninstall of BE, opted to keep files, jobs, etc data when prompted

(6)    Reboot

(7)    Reinstalled BE with DLO and advanced file open options, this time on SQL Express instance

(8)    Performed all available LiveUpdate fixes

(9)    Reboot

(10)  Noted BE loaded all jobs, selection lists, history etc as before (Yay!)

(11)  Set up DLO again from scratch (though a quick job, maybe 5-10 mins to do), no longer received errors

Set up client  machines, confirmed connections working
******************************

Later on, I had another SQL-related security update to do, which threw me through the same cycle as in my original post of having to finish the incomplete install - however, this ultimately did not result in having to once again reinstall BE, and DLO has still been working OK.  Not sure if BE, SQL Std vs EE or Windows Update (or combination) is the real root cause, but Symantec support seems to be right about using EE vs a higher SQL version, even though it shouldn't technically make a difference.

Dominick - I did not think of that, actually - will try that first instead if problems again arise in the future...