Backup Exec 2012 Service Pack 1 Released

[Turls]

Symantec has announced the global availability of Backup Exec 2012 SP1.  This service pack update to the Backup Exec 2012 product delivers enhancement requests that were received from our community in regards to the significant user interface changes introduced with the Backup Exec 2012 release. Here is a TECHNOTE that contains a list of known issues and enhancements resolved with Backup Exec 2012 revision 1798 Service Pack 1.

Please read the Backup Exec 2012 Service Pack 1 Announcement Blog for more details.

[aharte]

As subject says along with everyone else I had issues with service pack 1.   I applied service pack 1 and rebooted as instructed which led to a lovely reboot circle.  Had to travel to data centre to resolve via safemode and last known good configuration.  

BE 2012 reports service pack 1 is installed but is it?  Any idea's on how to confirm symantec?

Thanks

[zak2011]

After SP1 was installed and removed, it seems to have removed some of the catalogs also. When I am trying to do a restore from a tape, i am not able to do that. This means i need to recatalog the tape again. When i do that it goes to the default media set.

[PGagnon]

HI everyone, I'm having the same problem as you. This morning I've found this article: http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH190537&actp=RSS

Problem

After installing Backup Exec 2012 Service Pack 1 Backup Exec Server service crashes within few seconds of starting with error below in Event logs.

Solution

Workaround:

1. Go to command prompt and browse to "X:\Program Files\Symantec\Backup Exec" directory.

Note: replace X: with the drive letter where Backup Exec is installed.

2. Type bemig and hit enter key. Once the process is complete start the Backup Exec Server service.

In MY case it fixed my backup exec "beserver" service. So now I can access the software... 

FINALLY!!

[Rogo]

Like many, I had to uninstall 2012 w/SP1 completely and reinstall 2012 without SP1. I can at least get a backup now.

2012 is a pitiful product. Some companies can mess around with their products and it's a major annoyance. But mess with our ability to generate reliable backups is absolutely not acceptable on any level.

Talking to AppAssure, if I can make a deal. I'm kissing you boys goodbye.

[John_Sims]

I have the same issue, (ntdll.dll crash).  I am attempting a repair and will post my findings.

[zak2011]

Contacted Symantec Technical Advanced team and they have confirmed that the service pack1 removes catalog information and the only way to restore from tapes is to recatalog everything. However they said this would be resolved once SP1a is out. They have recommended again not to install SP1.

[EliasA]

zak2011, can you give me a case # so I can find out who you talked to about this issue.  This is not a valid statement.  We are working on resolving the crash that a few people are hitting, but the statement of SP1 removing catalog infomration is inaccurate.  Thus the reason I need to look at the case # that you called support on in order to track down that comment.  Feel free to email/direct message me that information please.

[Max123456789]

So. Removed BE2012 with SP1. Did not select the option to completely remove ALL files. Reboot and installed BE2012 again. Everything seems normal. All the jobs are there.

Only takes 15 minutes. Not a big deal.

Backup is running normal.

Wanted to wait for the SP1a but this takes too long unfortunately.

[zak2011]

Hi Elias,
In my case some of the catalog information has been removed.This has happened after the installation and uninstallation of sp1. So when i spoke to the support team yesterday , there were many possible hints that some of the catalog information was missing since i was not able to do some restores from tapes since the errors came up saying unable to find the media. Also when i tried to restore files from different tapes which were recently inventoried in the catalague information of Backup Exec it showed up as scracth media having no backup sets. Once i recatalogued them, the information shows up in the tapes but the media set went to the default media set. Also the media server backup job is failing ever since the sp1 was installed and uninstalled. The following error was what i was getting

Backup- \\BACKUPSRVXX.company.local\C:
File Program Files\Symantec\Backup Exec\Catalogs\BACKUPSRVXX\{358CBEC3-3E47-424A-B596-E34E1BF563D6}_...

.The case no. was 418-122-004.

So seeing all these events , it was concluded by the support team that SP1 had something to do with this.

[EliasA]

Thanks for the response on this, I'll follow this up and check the case.

[jpk]

Has anyone successfully installed this mess?  I'm not going near it after reading all of this.

[David_Palmersto]

jpk-

We tried updating to a downloaded copy of SP1 after having run BE2012 for 3 months and we got many, many new and different errors.

I finally bit the bullet last Friday night and did a COMPLETE BARE-METAL reinstall of our BE2012 server (and it caught SP1 via liveudpate during the process) and things have been a lot better (we actually have gotten 5-6 days of good backups!).

Things are NOT completely solved, but far, far better than adding in SP1 to a system that was already experiencing problems.

If you are getting okay results without SP1, I would wait a bit on SP1.

If you are NOT getting backups, I'd recommend the Bare Metal route as it actually doesn't take as long as trying to escalate a bunch of calls on what might be spurious errors.

YMMV

(Break over - now back to squashing a few more bugs...)

[jpk]

Thanks for the heads-up!

I have my own set of issues with the base install of 2012, but my backups are completing and appear to be restorable.  With that said, I'll let SP1 bake for a week or two until Symantec figures out how to fix the bugs that were supposed to fix bugs.  I can't fathom putting in the time to do a bare metal build of this *again*.  I'm kicking myself for not jumping to AppAssure or something else when i had the chance.  Unfortunately, I think BE has a limited lifespan within our organization.

[Artisanhw]

Just upgraded from BE2010 to BE2012 on Windows 2008 R2 server with IBM TS3100 robotic library with two drives, an LTO4 and an LTO5.

Installation was a bit of a mystery as it asked to follow some videos. To be safe, I completely uninstalled 2010 and then installed 2012. Required three reboots to get everything working.

UI is completely new and requires a bit of time to get used to but surprise, surprise.. no BEMCMD. Symantec has also decided to follow the same logic as some others i.e. take something that is simple and works perfectly fine and has been for years and replace it with something that is anything but simple.

I used BEMCMD since version 10 because I do lots of disk-to-disk backups before I kick off the actual disk-to-tape backup. I have all my command scripts working for years and running a backup job from script was as simple as calling BEMCMD with couple of parameters. Now with 2012, I have to rewrite some of that logic in PowerShell to work with BEMCLI. I am not a happy camper.

Could'nt Symantec just add BEMCLI to the list of tools and inform users that BEMCMD will be obsolete by release 2014 e.g so that users could get used to the new tool instead of just replacing it cold turkey. Just a very dumb decision as far as I am concerned.

[clovett]

I tried doing a repair of Backup Exec to see if that would fix the issue but that didn't help.  I then uninstalled sp1, did a reboot, reinstalled sp1 and rebooted.  This seemed to have fixed the major issue with the beserver.exe process.  Now 4 days later I check Backup Exec and beserver.exe is consuming memory and crashing again!  How could it work for 4 days and then with nothing changing on the server start crashing again? 

[zak2011]

Hi Elias,

Have you got any response from this case. I am not even able to back up my media server properly. Is there any update about the service pack update!

Thanks!

[EliasA]

I didn't receive an update back from our support management on this case yet, but I did pass along the information.  In regards to the update, it should be on Live Update mid-week.

[raelsprinkler]

That is simply CRAZY to do a bare-metal restore for a SP that Symantec put out that is causing all these issues!

[Number5Alive]

I am getting the ntdll.dll error as well and backups haven't been running since SP1. I was hoping SP1 would fix some random issues we were having and then BOOM. Really, really, frustrated with Symantec on this. 2012 was bad, but this is just unacceptable. Very seriously considering dropping them when my support contract is up (or sooner if this doesn't get fixed very very quickly).

The support technician I talked to said the Advanced Team is aware of the problem and are looking into some fix. If SP1a is indeed out by midweek like Elias said, that would be nice. I am losing sleep over no backups running.

[raelsprinkler]

I have the same problem. They took a error log and said they will call me at 5 PM last night. I waited until 6:30 PM no call, now I have no backups since 6/8/2012 I have emailed them a few times, no reply. Going to call them now. This is really bad!