Catalog hangs on Loading Media

[Ashley_Mobley]

Hello-

I am fairly new to Backup Exec, but our employee who knew how to run it has left the company.  We are using Backup Exec 12.

I need to catalog many old tapes.  I put the tapes in the drive, and run an inventory and they are discovered.  Then, I right click on the slot I need in the devices tab and select Catalog Media.  When I click "Run Now" the job is created, and it goes to the Active state, but the current operation stays at 'None" and the job status gets stuck on "Loading Media."  I've let it sit for 5 or 6 hours and this same thing happens with different tapes.  

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks so much for your help!

[Moe_Howard]

Based on your description of the problem you mentioned the word "slots".  This implies you have a media changer, tape library, etc...  Normally you do not have to put tapes in the drive inside the media changer because it will do this for you.  You also do not have to run an inventory of the tapes either with a media changer...this is done on the fly when the media is mounted by the internal robotic arm.

My guess is that Backup Exec Alerts have been suppressed and there is an active one pertaining to the catalog job(s) you are attempting to run.  After you run the catalog job and get it to :hang" click on the Alerts tab to see if one exists for the job you just ran.  If so, then open it and see what BE wants you to do.

Otherwise, you may be missing a simple step.

To catalog a tape not inside a media changer, you'll need to use the BE import command by right-clicking on an available slot and selecting Import.  Once the tape is inside the media changer, it should appear in the slot you selected previously.  The next step is to Inventory, by right-clicking on the slot and selecting Inventory.  When this completes, right click on the same slot and select catalog.  Pay attention to any Alerts that may appear between each step listed above.

Hopefully this helps.

[Ashley_Mobley]

Thank you for your response!

It is a library that has 24 slots that we change out.  

I tried to run the inventory on the library again, and I'm seeing several different kinds of errors.

The first error is:  
2         000010        000010    A device attached to the system is not functioning. DELL 3 ----- TapeAlert Events ----- The device has reported the following TapeAlert diagnostic information. Please contact your device manufacturer for more information regarding TapeAlerts. Information - The library has been manually turned offline and is unavailable for use. Robotic Library for Device: DELL 1 Warning - Library security has been compromised. Robotic Library for Device: DELL 1 Critical - The library has detected a inconsistency in its inventory. 1. Redo the library inventory to correct inconsistency. 2. Restart the operation Check the applications users manual or the hardware users manual for specific instructions on redoing the library inventory. Robotic Library for Device: DELL 1

And the other errors are all:  
3 000048   incompatible media   Incompatible media has been detected in the slot. The most likely causes for this error are: The library or tape drive hardware is reporting an incompatible media error, or the library has bar code rules enabled and a bar code rule does not exist for the bar code in the slot, or there is no tape drive in the library that is compatible with the media in the slot as specified by the matching bar code rule.


For the first one, does that mean that the tape is non functioning?  And for the other "incompatible media" errors, where are the bar code rules so I can sort this out?

I appreciate your help and patience!  

[Moe_Howard]

Based on the error it appears there is a severe problem with the tape drive "DELL 1"...which is a generic name Backup Exec issued.  The remaining errors could indicate the tapes are not compatible with the tape drive...and this could be the root cause of the problem.  Before we jump the gun, do you know what is the make and model of the tape drive?  Do you know what generation the tapes are?

If you are not sure, go to the \Backup Exec\logs folder and open adamm.log.  Drop to the bottom of the log and slowly scroll up until you start seeing the tape hardware.

If you are not sure what you are looking for do this:

1. While at the bottom of the adamm.log file, press Ctrl-F
2. In the 'Find what' field enter the following: Device Discovery:
3. In the 'Direction' section select 'Up'
4. Select the 'Find Next' button

This will take you to the top of the device(s) section that Backup Exec started to look for.  Copy and paste what's between 'Device Discovery:' and 'Device End:' in your next reply.

[Ashley_Mobley]

The tape drive (a dell powervault 132T) should be OK; we use it for nightly backups and don't have any errors with our normal daily tasks, just this catalog project.  However, I would not be at all surprised to hear if a few of the tapes are unreadable at this point and it seems like we're only getting the " A device attached to the system is not functioning" error on one of the tapes.

Here is the device discovery log:

2] 05/07/10 14:57:04.439 Device Discovery:

Scsi Address

Prt :Bus :Tar :Lun   Attributes

-------------------  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

0003:0001:0000:0000  Device Name             "\\.\MediumChanger0"

                     Primary Inquiry         "DELL    PV-132T         310D"

                     Secondary Inquiry       "DELL    PV-132T         310D"

                     Serial Number           "DELL    PV-132T         DELL1_3134341G1679"

                     Device Flags            USCSI, SN(TYPE 0), SN(ELEMENT)

                     Device State            3, Online

                     Device IDs              1011, {95D6FC7E-E4F6-42DB-A4BC-975C9F9BAA5C}

                     Device Name             "DELL 1"

                     Device Type             2131755008, "CHANGER FS=1"

                     Device Features         0x00006200: PP,RMP,RRD

                     1st Slot Number         1

                     Number Of Slots         23

                     Portal Slots            1

                     Import/Export           Robotic

                     Drive Element 0         1012, "IBM     ULTRIUM-TD2     1110258313"

                     Drive Element 1         1013, "IBM     ULTRIUM-TD2     1110094714"

0003:0001:0001:0000  Device Name             "\\.\Tape0"

                     Secondary Name          "\\?\scsi#sequential&ven_ibm&prod_ultrium-td2&rev_67u1#4&1ebe04c2&0&110#{53f5630b-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}"

                     Primary Inquiry         "DELL    PV-132T-LTO2    67U1"

                     Secondary Inquiry       "IBM     ULTRIUM-TD2     67U1"

                     Serial Number           "IBM     ULTRIUM-TD2     1110258313"

                     Device Flags            USCSI, SN(TYPE 0)

                     Device State            3, Online

                     Device IDs              1012, {037DA8F5-B67E-40D4-9935-7E8283DB28CF}

                     Device Name             "DELL 2"

                     Device Type             134283265, "LTO 64K (64K,10,0,E,HU)"

                     Device Features         0x000BFA7F: PB,SFB,SRB,WFM,SFF,SRM,PEOD,EL,LU,E,SBS,DC,SDC,TA,HU,RR

                     Device Element          1011, 0

                     Device Block Limits     [512, 65536]

0003:0001:0002:0000  Device Name             "\\.\Tape1"

                     Secondary Name          "\\?\scsi#sequential&ven_ibm&prod_ultrium-td2&rev_67u1#4&1ebe04c2&0&120#{53f5630b-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}"

                     Primary Inquiry         "DELL    PV-132T-LTO2    67U1"

                     Secondary Inquiry       "IBM     ULTRIUM-TD2     67U1"

                     Serial Number           "IBM     ULTRIUM-TD2     1110094714"

                     Device Flags            USCSI, SN(TYPE 0)

                     Device State            3, Online

                     Device IDs              1013, {85A15423-B9CD-4C83-BC35-7FA3D32F8A2F}

                     Device Name             "DELL 3"

                     Device Type             134283265, "LTO 64K (64K,10,0,E,HU)"

                     Device Features         0x000BFA7F: PB,SFB,SRB,WFM,SFF,SRM,PEOD,EL,LU,E,SBS,DC,SDC,TA,HU,RR

                     Device Element          1011, 1

                     Device Block Limits     [512, 65536]

-------------------  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[4792] 05/07/10 14:57:09.423 Start Rsm Support:

[4792] 05/07/10 14:57:09.423 Device Discovery End:

[Moe_Howard]

I mis-read the original error message and meant to draw attention to Dell 3 rather than Dell 1.  Dell 1 is the changer and Dell three is the second tape drive.  Now that we know you have two IBM LTO2 tape drives in the Dell changer, are you having the same problem the other LTO tape drive in the changer?  If not, then focus your troubleshooting effort on Dell 3.  I recommend cleaning the drive with a known good cleaning tape and retry the backup.  If the problem still occurs then I would contact Dell for hardware support.

If the problem occurs with both tape drives, I would still try cleaning the drives and retry the backup to see if it passes.  If not, then you'll still want to contact Dell for hardware support.

Good luck...