cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Backup jobs hang when spanning tapes.

Mike_Delta
Level 2

Hello!

 

I'm running BackupExec 2010r3 on a [virtual] Server 2008x64 (r2/SP2) host (ESX 4.1, BladeCenter, with an IBM T2900 autoloader physically attached to the blade my backup server runs on), and every time I do a full backup job of anything that needs to span more than one tape, the job hangs, and waits for someone to respond to an "alert" to insert some overwritable media.  This is troublesome because we set our full backups to run over weekend, during hours that I prefer to be sleeping or "living life," and perplexing because I've set all our jobs and media sets to append only, overwrite protected until forever... so I’m thinking it shouldn't be looking for an overwritable tape in the first place, and it's not going to find one anywhere anyway.

If anyone can point me in the right direction or tell me what I need to change to get these jobs running as configured, it'd be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks.

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Striker_303
Level 6
Employee


When you start a job, BE can Over-write and even Append the tape

When job continues and needs to span on 2nd or 3rd media, Tape needs to be Over-writable.

A good article over media managment:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH5459

View solution in original post

10 REPLIES 10

AmolB
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

Whenever the backup jobs spans over multiple tapes then from 2nd tape onwards BE prompts 

for an overwritable, its by design.

Refer to  http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH158123

Ken_Putnam
Level 6

the job hangs, and waits for someone to respond to an "alert" to insert some overwritable media

You can set an autoresponse to this prompt.  See

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH23614

Event ID 58061: "Please insert overwritable media.. Respond OK to acknowledge. Respond Cancel to cancel the operation" is reported in the Event Viewer Application Log

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified

You can set an availability window for your selection list.  Once the availability window is exceeded, the job will cancel automatically.

Mike_Delta
Level 2

Thanks for the responses... is there any way to have the job continue (automatically) on appendable media?  I know it's not really recommended, or necessarily a good idea, but for the current environment, this is the way it has to be, at least for the short term, and it would be... not a major pain in the pants-area if I could get the large full backups to span tapes on our appendable-only weekly media sets.

Striker_303
Level 6
Employee

Move an Over-writebale tape to Scratch media set, BE will automatically pick the second tape to append

without giving an prompt.

 

Second tape needs to be over-writeable, in order to be appended..Be cannot span a tape on appended media making it immposible to restore.

Ken_Putnam
Level 6

is there any way to have the job continue (automatically) on appendable media?

 

Sorry, no

Only the first volume of a multi-volume job will append.  All subsequent volumes will be Overwrite.

Mike_Delta
Level 2

That's so very much not what I wanted to hear, but thanks for telling me and saving me some time trying to do what can't be done.  (And just BTW, I'm not the one who gave you the downvote. :\ )

So, as a quick follow up - the solution then, with having our media sets as appendable, and jobs set to only use appendable media would be to add a tape (or two or three, since we're still on LTO3) to the magazine, set them as scratch media, like suggested above, and then those overwriteable tapes would only be used on jobs that need to span tapes?

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified

 

You can do that, but very soon you would run out of slots in your library.  You should set your OPP to a reasonable period so that your tapes can overwritten when the data are no longer required.

Striker_303
Level 6
Employee


When you start a job, BE can Over-write and even Append the tape

When job continues and needs to span on 2nd or 3rd media, Tape needs to be Over-writable.

A good article over media managment:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH5459

Mike_Delta
Level 2

Yup, looks like that's what I'll have to do.

 

Thanks!