cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Backup Exec 2010 R3 - Communications failure between Job Engine and Remote Agent

Luke_Cassar
Level 5

Hi,

I just set up a new Backup Exec 2010 R3 installation with a tape loader and partitions and etc.. all the good stuff. The machine backs itself up, an AD server and an MSX2010 server. The credential test for the job reports all success connecting to the resources.

The job log itself shows stuff being backed up from the local machine, the AD server and the Exchange Server (Information Stores, etc..) which all goes fine. Its only at the end of the Job log in a seperate section that this communication failure error is reported as follows:

Completed status: Failed
Final error: 0xe00084f9 - A communications failure has occurred between the Backup Exec job engine and the remote agent.
Final error category: Resource Errors
 

I follow the support link to here:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH28737&actp=search&viewlocale=en_US&searchid=1334281890371

But in my Logon Account Management screen I already have a System Logon Account which is my backupexec service account. Note that the system itself is logged on as another user (console user for the machine).

I restarted all the BE services but this did not help.

Do I perhaps not have enough permissions assigned to the backupexec service account (it is a domain administrator)? I assume since it does not fail to backup any of the remote machines, that this problem is referring to the remote agent installed on the BE server itself?

Anyway I am puzzled, so if anyone can help it would be appreciated.

 

Cheers,

Luke

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

Hi Luke,

 

Check the TN below for the BESA requirements in order to backup Exchange 2010.

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO21796

If you're getting that error message though, it could be that a RAWS agent is stopping on a particular server.

In this case, up the level of logging for a backup run and see where it fails.

You can also check each server's RAWS event log to see if the RAWS agent is failing, and once you find it, make sure that the AV or firewall isn't blocking it from running for whatever reason.

Thanks!

View solution in original post

18 REPLIES 18

Riyaj_S
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

Have you tried backing up to Backup to disk folder ? Exactly which resource it is failing on ?

Hope this helps.

Luke_Cassar
Level 5

I did initially perform a backup to disk just of the AD server and this worked OK..

But yeah, the selections I have put in the selection list all appear to backup OK (the local files, the AD server disk and system state and the email server disk and information stores).. the individual sections for those selections in the job log all come up fine.. its at the end that I get the error and it is not referring to anything in particular which is why I am confused.

Cheers!

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

Hi Luke,

 

Check the TN below for the BESA requirements in order to backup Exchange 2010.

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO21796

If you're getting that error message though, it could be that a RAWS agent is stopping on a particular server.

In this case, up the level of logging for a backup run and see where it fails.

You can also check each server's RAWS event log to see if the RAWS agent is failing, and once you find it, make sure that the AV or firewall isn't blocking it from running for whatever reason.

Thanks!

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

I would suggest to isolate the issue you need to split your resources into separate test jobs

1) The System State of the Domain Controller

2) The local drives of each serevr (seperate jobs per server)

3) Each Exchange Storage Group/Information store  (one job per group)

I suspect it is something to do with Exchange (and the GRT catalog process) but currently there is not information to confirm this.

 

 

 

Luke_Cassar
Level 5

Hi Gents,

Thanks for your responses. I had a look again and noticed that the server was complaining about one of the agents being out of date. It turns out its the agent on the AD machine. So I go through the motions to remote install the agent but I get errors.

"Error connecting to the remote registry of SERVER. Ensure that the current logged in account is not blocked from accessing the remote registry and that the remote registry is available before trying again"

I did supply the domain administrator account credentials for the install, but I assume remote registry is not enabled on the AD server. This is typical and how I normally handle this sort of thing is to run the installer manually from the AD server itself.

How can I run the remote agent install from the AD server and ensure it is installing the latest version (eg. is there are share somewhere on the BE server where I can run setup.exe from on the AD server to install the remote agent locally).

I think if I can do that then it should be cool.

Thanks again for your responses!

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified

1) Try starting the remote registry service on the AD machine and try to push install the remote agent again.

2) Otherwise, follow the instructions in this document to install the remote agent

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH128757

Luke_Cassar
Level 5

Hi pkh..

That article is what I was looking for.. thanks! I did what it said and run a repair install (since there is no upgrade option).

I suppose all I can do now is reboot the server and see if the backup is OK tomorrow!

Will post an update when I know.

Cheers!

Luke_Cassar
Level 5

Updated agent did not help. I am thinking about trying the isolated jobs.. but I have my doubts since no one single backup item fails..

How can I increase the amount of logging a job generates to see if there are any more details to be had?

Thanks for all your help everyone

Luke_Cassar
Level 5

OK So I created another job which writes to disk instead of tapes (since this is a loader on the other side of the world I dont want to mess up the media rotation).

When I am backing up the two remote servers (AD and MSX) the job completes successfully (the selection list has NOTHING from the local server). So then I modified this job to use the original selection list which causes the jobs to fail and it also works without failing.

I am going to let the scheduled job run again to the tape library.. if it fails then it must be some sort of setting in the job itself rather then the selection list.. only problem is what???

Thanks

Luke_Cassar
Level 5

Right, over the weekend my job backing up the same selection list that worked for a B2D job failed when going to the autoloader with the same error as from the first post.

The job that goes to the loader was created with a policy but I am really at my witts end for why this error persists..

Does anyone have any ideas?

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

...and your media server is fully patched?

You can increase the level of logging under Tools --> Options --> Job Logs (I think it's the particular name).

The only other thing I can think of to do with the drive is to make sure you're using the Symantec drivers for the drive, and check to see if you need a firmware update...then try the backup again.

Trbonja
Level 1

I have exactly the same problem but with member server (2003). Backup would work for few days then it will fail with exactly the same error message.

Only way to get it going was to push agent again.

As this is a minor issue that I have with BE 2010 R3 I did not look in to it any futher but would like to know permament solution.

Luke_Cassar
Level 5

Hi CraigV,

Thanks for your response but I think that area of the Options only displays which folders and files are being backed up. I read something about adding -debug to the start paramaters for some services http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH23853 which is probably the sort of logging required to troubleshoot this.

Initially the device had the DELL drivers installed but I removed this because I know its best to use the drivers supplied by Symantec for whatever reason. I then deleted the device from BE and let it re-detect.

As for patches, it is checking every night and does not report any updates being required.

I have paused the jobs created by policy and created two jobs manually using the selection list from the policy jobs. I will see how this goes tonight.

Cheers

Luke_Cassar
Level 5

BAH.. what a nightmare.. creating the jobs manually still doesn't fix the problem.. but if I copy one of the jobs I created manually, change it to run now and set the output to B2D instead of the tape library it works..

SIGH.. I am going to have to bite the bullet and call Symantec support.. sad

I will update here when I find out what is going on.

Luke_Cassar
Level 5

The Symantec support guy (who was actually pretty helpful) showed me where to check the drivers being used and we found out that even though I uninstalled the device in Windows Device Manager and told Symantec to discover the device, it was still using a Windows driver (in Device Manager)

He pointed me at http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH17931 and we went through the steps there to install the Symantec driver..

CraigV mentioned the drivers, but I thought they were Symantec :(

This will require a reboot, which sadly I cannot do right now, and doing a test job was not really worthwhile since I have seen some jobs run sucessfully with a different selection list, so I will reboot it tomorrow and see what happens.

Luke_Cassar
Level 5

I am going to close this case.. the drivers did not make any difference.. The symantec ones did not even work to allow the tape drive to operate so they had to be replaced with the DELL/Microsoft ones.

The Symantec tech said that the soft read errors I am getting indicate a problem with the tape drive hardware, but after some reading on the Internet, 1 or 2 soft read errors over a period of 5 backups to a tape is nothing to be alarmed about.

We have just moved Exchange 2010 to a new server, the error persists, but on the Exchange server I notice some VSS errors in the event log when the backups occur. I am going to open a new post as I believe that this is the problem, not faulty tape drives or drivers.

Luke_Cassar
Level 5

Turns out this was caused by the Antivirus.

The latest version (which I have not used before) comes with all sorts of network firewalls and features for both servers and workstations (previous versions did not have firewalls for servers). Because I am not used to these new features, I totally forgot that the servers now run firewalls that could be interfering (of course I have configured trusted networks, but it still goes bad).

These components were screwing up my Exchange cluster deployment and I found today they were also screwing up my backups (but only to tape, not to disk).

Anyway with the firewall disabled on the machine reporting the error I am able to backup sucessfully.

Wise words from CraigV..

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

Good stuff Luke.

AVs cause issues...I've personally had fights with McAfee AV with issues like this: blocking BE accessing a server's registry; stopping services randomly; stopping the SQL service; stopping SQL Express 2005 installation as it calls a *.inf file...on and on and on!!!

Glad you sorted it out though...