Exchange backup failure - again (mailbox backup - bricklevel)

[Selma_Gjeset]

We don's seem to be able to back up contact information from Exchange any more. These messages are logged:

Access denied to file Top of Information StoreCalendar

The Exchange Server is not responding. Backup set canceled.
Backup completed on 22.08.2006 at 01:12:02.
Backed up 6165 mail message(s) in 2242 folder(s) in 41 mailbox(es)
36 corrupt files were backed up
271 items were skipped.
Processed 377 978 098 bytes in 42 minutes and 8 seconds.
Throughput rate: 8.56 MB/min
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A communications failure occurred on the backup device

(The corrupt files are ok - this is spam that's not deleted yet.)
And BE are suddenly unable to generate xml-log for this job.

Bricklevel mailbox backup have been running nicely until lately (medio july). We haven't changed the DMZ-config (network not changed neither physically nor by software configuration). The configuration regarding the accounts that BE uses to access and run server and client, inculuding logon accounts are also unchanged from last "working configuration".

I suspect that the error ocurred after installing some of the latest windows updates... ???

Config:
Servers (both BE server/DC and BE client/Exchange 2000) are running on Windows server 2003
BE server: 9.4691
AV both sides are NAV (server on the DC and client on the ExchangeMessage was edited by:
Selma Gjeset

[Joshua_Small]

I know it doesn't answer your question, but..

Why are you bothering with brick level backups?

Are you backing up the Information Store, and does this work correctly?

If you only have brick level backups, you do not have a backup solution which is useful in any way.

[Selma_Gjeset]

Store backup is ok. Works flawless. Luckily ;)
We've gone through this with our customer and the conclusion is that they want the bricklevel backups.

Back to solving the question (if there is a solution...)
I also noticed that there are trouble with backing up mails where the mail-client is running. I get

The item in use - skipped.

I didn't have this issue earlier - then the backup handeled open mailboxes too, without problems.

Could kb917159 have affected this? It was installed around the same time that this problems started...

And I forgot to tell that the AV is configured to not do the "on access scan" for file access during backup.

Furthermore - in the application log, on the server running the Backup Exec server... I recently got the event:

17052 :
This SQL Server has been optimized for 8 concurrent queries. This limit has been exceeded by 1 queries and performance may be adversely affected.

EventID: 17055
Source: MSSQL$BKUPEXEC

This occures each time I open the log from BE. (BE is also the only appz running MSSQL on this server.) I restarted all BE services running on the server yesterday and all mssql services too. This made no difference to this behaviour.

But I believe this last thing to be something on it's own, not connected to the first problem.

[shweta_rege]

This issue "Access denied to file ?, []?Top of Information Store?Sent Items?" usually occurs if the Backup Exec service account does not have sufficient rights in Exchange to perform the task.

-Log in using the BESA(Backup Exec service account).

-Make sure that BESA is a member of the "Domain Admin" and/or local "Admin" group. Also give "Exchange Admin " right from Exchange system administrator at the organization and site level.

-In order to back up and restore individual Exchange mailboxes, Backup Exec requires access to a uniquely named mailbox within the Exchange organization.

-Create a mailbox for the BESA account & activate it by sending a test mail.

-This error could occur if the mailbox being backed up was moved to the new store. Moving the mailbox back to the original store will again allow all messages to be backed up successfully.

Refer to the following technotes :-
1.

http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/261457.htm

2.

http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/207001.htm

3.

http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/255047.htm


4.

http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/243524.htm





Thank You,


Shweta

[Selma_Gjeset]

> This issue "Access denied to file ?, []?Top of
> Information Store?Sent Items?" usually occurs if the
> Backup Exec service account does not have sufficient
> rights in Exchange to perform the task.

As I said, this account is the same that have been used all the time - also last month, when the bricklevel backup worked. We have not done any changes neither to the AD user groups, AD accounts or to the backup configuration during this time.

Is there any feature in BE that would allow it to change this by itself?
BTW - the account running is the same logon account that BE uses in order to back up First Storage group. Which is running the way it should. I just can't understand how the rigths that was sufficient earlier suddenly coud become insufficient without any user interaction, neither in AD or in BE, except maybe though a windows update.

The service runs as domain admin, and the exchange server is a domain member. Anyway - I've rechecked the settings, and I can't find anything wrong there. The exchange services and the domain admin have the same rigths ...

And yet - suddenly BE are unable to acccess all calendar information:
Access denied to file Top of Information StoreCalendar

and some complete mailboxes, where it reports
The item in use - skipped.
I suspect that this regards mailboxes in use at the time the backup is running. But we've had open mailboxes while running backup earlier, without this error message.:-S

> -In order to back up and restore individual Exchange
> mailboxes, Backup Exec requires access to a uniquely
> named mailbox within the Exchange organization.
>
> -Create a mailbox for the BESA account & activate it
> by sending a test mail.
>
> -This error could occur if the mailbox being backed
> up was moved to the new store. Moving the mailbox
> back to the original store will again allow all
> messages to be backed up successfully.
>
> Refer to the following technotes :-
> 1.
>
> http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/261457.htm

I don't get that error message. Are you sure this has anything to do with the errors that I mention?


> 2.
>
> http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/207001.htm

I don't get that error message. Are you sure this has anything to do with the errors that I mention?
>
> 3.
>
> http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/255047.htm

I got warnings, but as far as I can see it's the errors that's causing the backup to fail, not the warnings? BTW, the AV is Symantec AW 10, server/client - fully updated.
>
>
> 4.
>
> http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/243524.htm

There have not been any moving mailboxes on the server. (And we have only the one mailbox store to keep the mailboxes in.) ;)

The other error - 17052 - went away after a reeboot. And now the log files respond much quicker. I think perhaps SQL recovered from something... ???

[Gauri_Ketkar]

Hi,

Please try creating a new selection list ...

revert for any further Query
Hope this will help you


Thank you
Gauri

[Selma_Gjeset]

Before I try that (which is a considerable amount of work since BE fails on corrupt mails which means that a top level selection won't due, and I have to go through each user account's mailbox and deselect all folders with trash, deleted, spam etc) is this a known issue and a known solution to my problem?

Again - the selections that are running is the same selections earlier worked.
I find it a little strange that they should "stop working" for no reason.

[Asma_Tamboli]

Hello Selma,

Could you tell us if you can select individual mailboxes for backups.. dont create a new selection list, but just check if these can be selected or if you get the error while selecting the individual mailboxes!

Thanks!

[Selma_Gjeset]

Uhm. Funny. *feeling a bit stupid now*
I tried selecting only a couple mailboxes. The calendar information got backed up ok.
Does still have trouble releasing the connection to the exchange server, but it seems that all that should be backed up IS backed up.

So, I'm still stuck with
"A communications failure occurred on the backup device"
but after the last file is backed up. And all the "access denied"-errors seems to have disappeard.

I will re-enable (re-select) the calendar information in the original list and run that one tonight.

[Asma_Tamboli]

Hi Selma,

How have the backups run? Could you update us on the issue?

Thanks a lot!

[Selma_Gjeset]

Well. I'm back to:

- Seemingly ok bricklevel backup which runs through and verifies the correct number of mailboxes (and I assume the rigth amount of folders too).
- The size of the backup seems to be right.
- I still get the error:

Job Completion Status
Job ended: 14. september 2006 at 01:46:41
Completed status: Failed
Final error: 0xa000fe30 - A communications failure has occurred.

Final error category: Server Errors

and

Backup - \\SERVER\Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes The Exchange Server is not responding. Backup set canceled.
Backup - SERVERA communications failure occurred on the backup device

and

The Exchange Server is not responding. Backup set canceled.

Backup completed on 14.09.2006 at 01:14:49.

Backup Set Summary
Backed up 185364 mail message(s) in 2209 folder(s) in 39 mailbox(es)
Processed 13 475 674 185 bytes in 3 hours, 1 minute, and 57 seconds.
Throughput rate: 70.6 MB/min

A communications failure occurred on the backup device

It seems to me that the backup runs ok, but that the agent fails to disconnect correctly afterwards?

I get this errors for both full and diff bricklevel jobs on the same exchange unit.