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Freeze / stuck to one tape

Roger69
Level 3

Hi all,

I experiance a really enoying problem with Backyp Exec 15:

I have some jobs that freeze without any error during backup (mainly simple file backup from windows server to tapes)

If i don't cancel them they keep runing for days and never end.

It seems that it append when it reach then end of a tape, the job never take the next one into the pool to continue.

I don't see any log error, just stuck in a file randomly and not even big file...

I'm unfortunatly quite new to BackupExec and have to use existing config. So any help is welcome

 

Thanks in advance

 

Roger

11 REPLIES 11

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

Hi,

 

Are you using a stand-alone drive or an autoloader/tape library?

If the latter, are you using partitions, and are there useable tapes in the partitions? This, or tapes that are not appendable/overwritable can cause a backup to pause while a new tape is made available.

Thanks!

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

Have you checked the alerts as when a job asks for a tape (because it can't find a suitable one) the job wil not move on unless you acknowledge the alert.

Roger69
Level 3

I'm using an autoloader (HPE StoreEver 1/8 G2 Tape Autoloaders)

I've created multiple media sets
On current media sets there is 3 tapes appendable
When starting job it take correctly and automaticly first tape of the mediaset corresponding without error

When getting stuck, there is absolutly no alerts

Is there more verbose log somewhere?

Thanks for your help

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

Are there partitions, or do you have a full set of 8 slots to target? If there are partitions, then BE doesn't look outside of a targetted partition for a useable tape...

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

If some the 3 tapes that are appendable are not also overwritable then the job will sit waiting for a tape when it fills the first tape (but should pop an alert)

 

If you look carefully at the backup job setting where you tell the job to append you will see it is within a section relating to when the job starts.

However when a job fills the first tape and still needs to continue, it is no longer the start - which means the append choice does NOT apply to the second tape - in fact we have to overwrite all but the first tape in a spanning sequnce as jobs fill each tape - there is no ability to append beyond the first tape used.

Roger69
Level 3

Hi tried some stuff hiesterday and i got an alert :)

I have 2 blank tapes into the mediaset why are they ignored? :(

b4.png

 

b1.png

b2.png

b3.png

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

It looks like  every tape is overwrite protected - evene the blanks ones - meaning none can be used for the overwrite operation that is needed for the subsequent tape requests.

Roger69
Level 3

Mmmm yes you're right there are overwrite protected for 3 weeks

But as i did erease them there is nothing to overwrite no?

So how should i configure my media set to take blank tapes and be sure that data will not be overwrited?

 

Thanks :)

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

Did you erase them and then manually move them back to the media set (incorrect behaviour)?

or did you erase them and leave them in the scratch set to let BE move them back when needed (correct behaviour)?

 

 

Roger69
Level 3

I did the incorrect behaviour :\

but then how does it now the correct mediaset to be in?

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

Ok so what happens is

When a tape is first put in a media set it gets the overwriet protection at that point in time - this is true whether you put it in the set manually or Backup Exec moves it when it overwrite the tape. As such your action means it is immediately marked the tape as overwrite protected because you moved it manually from scratch.

Backup Exec cannot overwrite a tape - even if it is empty when it is overwrite protected.

 

If you leave the tape in the scratch set there are rules (see the sections about how overwritable tapes are chosen in the admin guide) that control where Backup Exec will look for overwritable tapes so basically what happens is

As a simplified explantion - It looks at the device of the job (which might be a stand alone drive, a library or the partition within the library) to find out what overwritable tapes are present  - and then uses the defined rules to decide which to use first out of the following

- tape in scratch set (which will always be overwritable)

- overwritable tape in targeted media set

- overwritable tape form a different media set

If it decides to choose a tape that is not in the targeted media set it then overwites it and in the process moves it to the targeted media set.

 

NOTE: you shoud only manually move tapes between sets when:

- retiring a tape (move to retired set)

- pulling a tape out of an assigned set into the scratch set (which can be done as a move to scratch or as an erase job)

- when you want to protect a tape for longer than originally configured so move it to a set with a longer overwrite protection period

Acceptoing the above situations - it is NOT RECOMMENDED to move tapes into a specific set - instead let Backup Exec do that for you under normal operation as you then avoid accidentally overwrite protecting a tape that you intend to use.

If you do find a reason to manually move a tape to a different set always check it's append and overwrite dates after the move so that you an understand when it can next be used.