Backup Exec 2010 issue searching for files

[psystems]

I am trying to restore an entire directory be searching for *.* in that path. Everytime I do so it crashed and gives me this error in the event viewer. It kills the job engine...

Here is the error:

Faulting application bengine.exe, version 13.0.2896.133, faulting module THEFH_LibCatalog.dll, version 13.0.2896.0, fault address 0x0001fac3.

Any ideas?

[pkh]

If you want to restore an entire directory, you just have to select it in the selection screen of the restore job.  You don't have to search for the files in the directory.  When you select the directory, all the files in the directory would be selected.

[psystems]

I am aware of that. But there are many incremental backups, and I am wanting to search them to determine what files and what dates they are available for. I should be able to do this without the Job Engine crashing.

[pkh]

Suppose your directory has 100 files, multiply that by the full backup and the number of incremental backups, you would end up with a very big listing if what you want to do is successful. How is that going to help you?  Surely you know what files you want to restore and searching for those files would be more helpful than searching for everything.

[dl2rcf]

...be aware, that BE2010's "search catalog" does not work as expected with your "hard-core" wildcard search *.*:

- during search perfoming, BE2010 completely ignores your path entry and with *.* completely soaks its buffer full with ALL files of the Resource e.g. \\Yourserver\N:. When the catalog search is finished, there will be probably be no entries within the results targetting your requested path, due to applying your path filter to the soaked-full / overflown buffer afterwards thus not leaving any desired entry within the results.

There are more problems with catalog search in BE2010, so preferably not to use it at all...

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/bug-wildcards-both-be2010-gui-bemcmd-command-line-app...

Suppose your directory has 100 files, multiply that by the full backup and the number of incremental backups, you would end up with a very big listing if what you want to do is successful. How is that going to help you?

--> ...at least with [x] Search for directories: sorting by size and taking only those directories that contain files for targetting your endless incrementals (regardless of Symantec's advise to NOT create "endless incrementals" with BE2010 but always some full backups in between)... of course: files & *.* is not the way to go :)

Be aware that restore over various incremental backups is "error-prone" in BE2010 according to the following document:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/blogs/simplified-restore-workflow-be-2012

[dl2rcf]

...have a look at BE2012's Point-In-Time restore option "PIT". It sounds perfectly suited for a restore over various incrementals...but as I said, its only within 2012.

Best regards, Ruben

[psystems]

So what you are telling me is that it might be the best thing to upgrade to 2012 and then attempt this restore?

[dl2rcf]

well I can tell You only practical about BE2010.

My knowledge about BE2012 is only from the documents on Symantec. Whilst the overall product 2010 is IMHO working quite nice, the restore function (restore over various incrementals/ search catalog) IMHO can not be worse in 2012 :)

When migrating be aware, that BE2012 is a whole new product. The catalog (that keeps track of your backups) is built differently.

[pkh]

BE2012 is a whole new product. The catalog (that keeps track of your backups) is built differently.

Can you provide some documentation to back up these statements?

[dl2rcf]

Hi there,

mhhm I had a quick search within my mails, but within this documentation it is not stated:

BackupExec2012_differences.pdf

So at the moment, I have only "oral" proof here from 2x technical support and one time from the Symantec Inhouse schooling department in Germany. When I have some more time, I can perhaps find the mail, where Symantec could not garantee us for the migration 100% smooth due to the catalog differences.

But please correct me if I am wrong, since I did not "analyze" myself the catalogs...but on the other side, why else would the command line tools BEMCMD for BE2010 and BEMCLI for BE2012 be stricly restricted to each version and not be interchangeable...so we could use the newer one (BEMCLI) for targetting the "old" BE2010 catalog and be perhaps more happy with catalog searches...

[pkh]

BEMCMD and BEMCLI have nothing to do with the catalogs.  They are the command line interfaces to BE 2010 and BE 2012 respectively.  BEMCLI takes advantage of Powershell and is part of the BE 2012 enhancements.

Do not make sweeping statements if you do not have any documentation to back them up.

[dl2rcf]

So the catalog structure did not change? So why did Symantec technical support tell this to us?! This is the one major issue that prevented us from migrating to BE2012. Crazy!