Errors every Tuesday Backup

[Marcopolo]

Hi all,

Going back approximately six weeks we've been receiving tape backup job failures for our Tuesday night backup, this job runs every night along with some disk backups which are fine.

Historically the errors started of the same

20/4/2011

Error category    : Job Errors
Error             : e00081d9 - The Backup Exec job engine system service is not responding.

27/04/2011

Error category    : Backup Device Errors
Error             : e000810c - Physical Volume Library Drive not available.

For additional information regarding this error refer to link V-79-57344-33036

04/05/2011 - same error as week before

Error category    : Backup Device Errors
Error             : e000810c - Physical Volume Library Drive not available.

For additional information regarding this error refer to link V-79-57344-33036

11/05/2011

Error category    : Resource Errors
Error             : e00084f9 - A communications failure has occurred between the Backup Exec job engine and the remote agent.

For additional information regarding this error refer to link V-79-57344-34041

18/05/2011

Error category    : Backup Media Errors
Error             : e00084c7 - A backup storage read/write error has occurred.

If the storage is tape based, this is usually caused by dirty read/write heads in the tape drive.  Clean the tape drive, and then try the job again.  If the problem persists, try a different tape.  You ma
For additional information regarding this error refer to link V-79-57344-33991

We've changed nothing during this period, though we are no running hardware compression if available but this was added week starting 18/04/2011. But as already mentioned the same job runs fine on Mon, Wed, Thues and Fri.

Are we really look at coincidence or is there something more deep rooted because the errors just aren't consistent.

Any ideas appreciated.

[AmolB]

Any AV scan schedule to run on Tuesday during the backup window?

[Marcopolo]

No, On access disabled and scan runs at 10:00 daily on the Backup Server

[AmolB]

Windows updates scheduled on Tuesdays ?

[Marcopolo]

Nope, automatic updates are off

[edvSDL]

Maybe the tuesday tape is damaged?

[Marcopolo]

Nope, we use a different tape, Tues1 to 4

[CraigV]

...are there any maintenance jobs scheduled for the Tuesday?

[Marcopolo]

Read quite a few reports of tape backup jobs failing on the same day of the week even though using different tapes so we're going to try a brand new tape next Tuesday. Some people have even suggested formatting the tape prior to use, surely this will be done automatically if the tape has never been used.

We'll see I guess

[CraigV]

...if the tape is new, it gets detected as scratch...no need to erase/format it.

I think the suggestion for you to erase the tape prior to the job running was a troubleshooting step...basically run that to see if that is what was required for some or other reason!

[Marcopolo]

That's my understanding also. It was just something I read elsewhere but understand the reasoning.

[Marcopolo]

Still receiving various errors though they have also moved to other days of the week, so it sort of removes the same day though the error code is different. The lastest one is consistent for that last two weeks on some but not all days.

Final error: 0xe00084ed - A hardware error occurred.
Final error category: Backup Device Errors

Storage device "QUANTUM 1" reported an error on a request to write data to media.
Error reported:
The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error.
V-79-57344-34029 - A hardware error occurred.
 

Would be helpful if the error code was consistent and reading such articles as mentioned here were see no Event ID's errors for 7, 9, 11 or 15.

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH45126&actp=search&viewlocale=en_U...

The errors do seem to be related to read/write so the next step is to try and use the tape that came with the DLT-S4 just in case it's a bad batch issue.
 

[Marcopolo]

Well the problems continue

DLT000110
 

Error category    : Backup Device Errors
Error             : e00084f0 - The device timed out.

For additional information regarding this error refer to link V-79-57344-34032

[pkh]

It looks more like a tape hardware problem.  Try running the Quantum diagnostic utility against your drive.  Make sure that the BE services are stopped and select the write test.

[Marcopolo]

That's what I thought. Ran the diags and sent to Quantum a while back and awaiting update.

I've just run tapeinst in udate the driver, which went up from 5.1 to 5.1.25 but Quatum are telling me the latest is 5.1.37, so how do I get that?

[Gregmfg]

It's more than likely on the Quantum website under your tape drive.  Though I use symantec drivers seems to be much more reliable for me.

[Marcopolo]

If tapeinst has installed 5.1.25, I'm sticking with that. It's common knowledge that you should use the Symantec driver, which is good enough for me.

[Marcopolo]

We've had successful backups since the 4th August (new DLT-S4) until today.

Unfortunately it seems like our problems have not gone away, though I was advised when I returned this morning that all was fine.

It seems that the tape was ejected (Fridays tape) and the person thought the backup had finished and when another inserted (mondays tape) the backup started to run this morning @ 09:00 so I cancelled it.

Once the backup cancel completed, the following error was reported to the log

Error category    : Backup Device Errors
Error             : e00084ed - A hardware error occurred.

For additional information regarding this error refer to link V-79-57344-34029

[CraigV]

...did the error crop up when you cancelled the job? Or are there any alerts in the Alerts tab within BE itself before you cancelled the job?

Might be worth your while to now check out the hardware...

[Marcopolo]

No errors until the job was cancelled, no pending alerts, nothing. Only thing I can see in the Windows System log is is from the 13th @ 01:19 and again at 11:26, now the job does start @ 01:00

The description for Event ID ( 129 ) in Source ( Lsi_scsi ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: \Device\RaidPort0.

Nothing reported in the system management tools either