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Deduplication folder stays offline

Devin_Meade
Level 2

Forum,

We upgraded Backup Exec from 2010-R3 to 2012-SP1.  We have the dedupe option for both versions.  The upgrade was done two weeks ago and we have been running dedupe jobs successfully.  Now the deduplication folder will not come online. We have about 10TB of backups extending back 6 months.

Under “Storage” this message is displayed next to the dedupe folder:
This device has not been discovered correctly. Cycle the services on _CoSRV-BEX to retry device discovery.

This alert is also logged:
Backup Exec was unable to initialize and communicate with the device [SYMANTECOstLdr        MACF] (The handle is invalid.).  Click the link below for more information on how to diagnose the problem. 
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=answers&startover=y&question_box=V-275-1017 

note the above link is for 2010, not 2012.

Actions taken:

  1. Using the BE Services mgr, the services were recycled (many times) – no improvement.
  2. The server was rebooted – no improvement.
  3. Using the BE Services mgr, the services (including the dedupe services) were recycled – no improvement.
  4. The server and drive array were powered off and powered back on.  All is normal.  We did recycle the services with and without the dedupe services after this power up - no improvement.

FYI
We have a Dell PowerEdge R710 and an MD1200 array for the local D: drive, which has the dedup folder and nothing else.  The server runs Win Server 2008R2 and has 64GB RAM.  There are no hardware errors.  The physical array is normal and drive D can be browsed. Live Update shows we are up-to-date.  Some google searches suggest solutions for 2010, not 2012 . . . that the solution is to remove the target servers from the devices window, and disable client side dedupe.  How can that be done in 2012?

I have opened a support ticket with Symantec, but I cannot get them to call me back.  Symantec advises that they will have the Deduplication support team call me back.  I was promised a call back 3 ½ hours ago, but that hasn’t happened.  I have called back twice with the ticket number and been shunted over to the voice mail of engineer that owns the ticket.  Is there any hope for this?  Should I look for a replacement to Backup Exec?

... Frustrated and hoping we don't have to restore anything.

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Devin_Meade
Level 2

Symantec did get in touch with me, they had my email address wrong (that's been corrected).  Anyway here is the solution ... thank you Symantec for working with me!

The local D: drive, which has nothing but the Dedupe folder, had 5.8% free. BE needs 15% free space to mount the dedupe store.

FYI - This was never a problem with our installation of BE 2010 due to dedupe database limit of 16TB.  Our system has a 20TB disk array, so BE 2010 could never use up more than 80% of the space.  This is an upgraded server … 2010 to 2012.  This increased the db limit from 16 to 32TB.

I ran the space reclamation process from http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH130103

After this was done, we had over 20% of free space, but the de-duplication folder would not come online.

Service restarts and reboots would not help.

Deleted the deduplication folder (which leaves the data intact). This took about 10 min, I am guessing it removed all the catalogs for all the “virtual” OST and IMG media.

Using the create Dedupe folder wizard, imported this right back in.

It took about 5 min and then went online (lots of disk activity for drive D).

This started an inventory and catalog process for ~10TB of data.

We verified the above using "C:\Program Files\Symantec\Backup Exec\SGMon.exe", this allows us to see the IMG and OST files being processed. It took around 8 hours or so, but now we have all of our old data back the way it was.

I changed the BE setting for the dedup folder device “Percentage of disk space to reserve for non-Backup Exec operations” from 5% to 15%. 

View solution in original post

2 REPLIES 2

VJware
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

As a customer, you have the complete right of escalating the case if the support team does not meet your expectations...While calling support, either do not enter the case number & you would be routed over to the team who can engage a Duty Manager to alleviate your concerns else if entering the case number, do not choose the option of a voice-mail...

Are the Dedupe services in a started state ? Any errors under the event viewer ?

Devin_Meade
Level 2

Symantec did get in touch with me, they had my email address wrong (that's been corrected).  Anyway here is the solution ... thank you Symantec for working with me!

The local D: drive, which has nothing but the Dedupe folder, had 5.8% free. BE needs 15% free space to mount the dedupe store.

FYI - This was never a problem with our installation of BE 2010 due to dedupe database limit of 16TB.  Our system has a 20TB disk array, so BE 2010 could never use up more than 80% of the space.  This is an upgraded server … 2010 to 2012.  This increased the db limit from 16 to 32TB.

I ran the space reclamation process from http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH130103

After this was done, we had over 20% of free space, but the de-duplication folder would not come online.

Service restarts and reboots would not help.

Deleted the deduplication folder (which leaves the data intact). This took about 10 min, I am guessing it removed all the catalogs for all the “virtual” OST and IMG media.

Using the create Dedupe folder wizard, imported this right back in.

It took about 5 min and then went online (lots of disk activity for drive D).

This started an inventory and catalog process for ~10TB of data.

We verified the above using "C:\Program Files\Symantec\Backup Exec\SGMon.exe", this allows us to see the IMG and OST files being processed. It took around 8 hours or so, but now we have all of our old data back the way it was.

I changed the BE setting for the dedup folder device “Percentage of disk space to reserve for non-Backup Exec operations” from 5% to 15%.