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Impressions of BackupExec 2012

Bulbous
Level 5
Partner

Is it just me, or does anyone else absolutely HATE the redesign of Backup Exec? I have worked with BE since version 8, and I have become acutely familiar with the menus, where everything is, and how it works.

This redesign of the UI reminds me of the differences between Microsoft Office 2003 and Office 2007, only much worse. Menus are now hidden behind other menus, and everything has a completely counter-intuitive feel.

At first, I thought that the feeling would pass as I grew more familiar with the product, but in fact my dislike has grown as I have found more issues.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

417 REPLIES 417

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

...for what it's worth, I voted you up on both now. Probably some fool who thinks it's funny to do so. Keep going! smiley

patters
Level 4

In my case, the jobs which cause this aren't consistent, and I tried moving the ones I thought caused the issue and different ones started to do it. In my case these preceding jobs complete successfully and there is no service crashing evident in the logs.

I did find this last night that seems to implicate the byte count of the job being a factor (big jobs more likely to fail), though it's related to an older BE version:

http://www.symantec.com/connect/forums/large-backups-not-appendable-end-marker-unreadable

But I mean come on. The Dell PV124T must be one of the most common libraries. I refuse to believe that something like Backup Exec isn't automatically QA'd on a selection of the most popular kit.

Or maybe it isn't. Maybe we're the QA team, testing the 'alpha' release. It certainly feels like it.

patters
Level 4

Nothing in my inbox - are you sure you sent the message?

EliasA
Community Manager
Community Manager
Employee CPEP

Patters - do yo have a case # I can reference from your interaction with our technical support department?

patters
Level 4

Sure it's 418-024-100. As of today it has been marked closed, even though I'm still without a resolution.

SeanRegan
Level 3
Employee

Would downvote somone offering help on a support forum, Sad. 

David_Palmersto
Level 4

Did a bare metal reinstall of BE 2012 + SP1 on Dell Server last weekend - things are working in a more stable manner.  If you are forced to be using BE2012, I'd recommend biting the bullet and doing a complete bare metal reinstall to save time and effort AND to allow FOCUS on real problems moving forward.  (No, I'm not an apologist, I just want to secure my company's information with the tools I'm dealt).

David_Palmersto
Level 4

Patters - I'm pretty sure I'm in your boat with TL2000 issues on BE2012 SP1 -

On Duplicate jobs I'm getting:

EventID 34113 "Data being read from the media is inconsistent"

EventID 57612 "Format inconsistency during a tape read operation" - from the disk device!

and on long-running jobs, I'm getting:

EventID 34113 "An Invalid Parameter was specified"

sad

 

No hardware errors relate to these BE errors.

Bulbous
Level 5
Partner

I've been giving 2012 an honest relentless attempt for a client with a simple set up, but I am still struggling to get my first successful backup. I've gotten to the point where the media server backs up correctly, but the remote server fails with the following error:

Error category    : Resource Errors
Error             : e000fe1f - The device cannot be found.

For additional information regarding this error refer to link V-79-57344-65055


Nothing is being backed up on the remote server other than a data folder. The remote server is 2008 R2 Foundation.

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

Hi,

 

No AV blocking your BE services on that remote server? No firewall in place that's causing a disruption in comms between the RAWS agent and the media server?  Is the RAWS agent publishing correctly to your media server? And finally...have you tried to recreate the backup job for the remote server?

Thanks!

jerrys79
Level 4

I've had successful backups for about a month with BE2012 but for the past 3 days I keep getting:

Storage device "Tape drive 0001" reported an error on a request to write data to media.

Error reported:

This operation returned because the timeout period expired.

V-79-57344-34032 - The device timed out.

Completed status: Failed
Final error: 0xe00084f0 - The device timed out.
 

The drive is only a month old.  It is a HP StorageWorks Ultrium 920 SAS.  I'm dreading opening a case with Symantec.  I'm out next week and don't have time for hours of troubleshooting.  Guess i'll first start with HP Library and Tape Tools and see if there is anything wrong with the drive.  Ugh.  Never had an issue with BE2010.

hazmat09
Level 4

I've been getting large data duplicate to tape jobs failing on me the past month. I was pretty convinced it was  the upgrade until today. I had to re-enable alerting on my TL2000. I ran a Hyper-V HA Cluster job last night, roughly 1.5TB of data. It failed 4 hours in and Backup Exec along with my TL2000 both sent error alerts.

I had Tape Alert 31 come from the TL2000. I called Dell Ent Support today and had them analyze everything. It was determined my tape drive in the TL2000 was having hardware error that would kick in during long/large jobs. They are replacing the drive on Tuesday.

I'll chalk this up to upgrade/hardware failure coincidence. I'll run some large jobs after I get the drive replaced and update via Tapeinst.exe prior to the jobs being run. I'll post back with my results. My TL2000 is only 2.5 years old, so I didn't think it would be failing already.

I will give Symantec props, as I had two software and hardware engineers reach out to me through the forum and called me to discuss the issues I've had with the upgrade etc.and asked for vxgather files etc.

Dell Ent.Support has always been top notch in my experience and again my issue was resolved in about an hour and I'll have a replacment drive by Tuesday.

hazmat09
Level 4

That's bizarre. I wrote it twice. The first time I did a preview and it wiped out my email to you. The second time I wrote it I submitted send and it said "Message Was Sent"

Anyways, turns out the IBM LTO drive in TL2000 coincidentally started having issues around the time of the upgrade. Dell is replacing it in few days.

I was sending you an link to an alternate solution to check out - http://www.appassure.com/

Good luck! 

EliasA
Community Manager
Community Manager
Employee CPEP

You are welcome hazmat09.  Please let me know if you have any further questions after you get your drive replaced.  And please let us know how things go.

patters
Level 4

Well this just gets better and better. After attempting to run with SGMon enabled with the highest level of Device and Media debugging, I log in today to see that the whole system has become unresponsive, SGMon has crashed and a Duplicate-to-Tape task (from a local RAID array to my local SAS tape loader) has taken 18 hours to back up 120GB. Bravo. This really isn't fit for purpose. How can it even be on sale?

If you factor in the time I have wasted on this product over the years, purchasing a duplicate remotely hosted EqualLogic SAN with replication starts to look like good value.

As many have stated, backup is something that should occupy no more than 10 mins of my day. Not 95% of my working time, and countless unpaid hours in the evening and at weekends.

I'll be fishing around to see which competing vendors are offering rebates for people's existing Symantec maintenance contracts.

Symantec - you've had too many last chances.

BankingIT316
Level 3

Check out my detailed how-to I wrote up here.  Did the downgrade recently.

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/how-downgrade-backup-exec-2012-2010-r3#comment-725450...

jsaliga
Level 2

If you talked to hundreds of customers and solicited their feedback then it seems abundantly clear to me that you talked to the wrong customers.  It is hard to imagine a situation where IT professionals who are responsible for data protection and disaster recovery would get behind the disconbobulated, incompetently developed mess that is BE 2012.  I have been working with and supporting Backup Exec since version 7.2 when Seagate Software had it, and Backup Exec 2010 will be the last version of the product that we will implement and support for our clients.

This release is a travesty, and will have a lot of loyal Backup Exec customers and consultants who implement and support it looking for the exit sign.

If Symantec wants to do the right thing then it would recall Backup Exec 2012.  Continue to support Backup Exec 2010 with feature enhancements and product updates.  You should then scrap this terrible re-design, go back to the drawing board, and come up with something that respects the original UI and how IT professionals want to manage and administer their backups.  The original interface wasn't broke, but it sure is now.

Bulbous
Level 5
Partner

I had my first good backup last night. The remote server had an extra entry in the selections list - which I could only see in the text view. This must have come from the migration. When I removed this entry, I got a successful backup on the remote server. I now have BE 2012 working in a two-server environment. Single server and 2-3 server environments make up the bulk of my clientele. I'm not overly confident with 2012, but I can see being able to sell this product to new customers.

I still have no idea what to do for larger clients with 4 or more servers.

BE_KirkFreiheit
Level 4
Employee

Hi Bulbuous,

The extra selection is indeed a migration artifact, and the only way to remove it right now is what you did: via the text view.  

Very glad you've seen some green checkmarks light up in the new GUI.

 

dougz
Level 4

I've been using Backup Exec for 9 years.  Without re-hashing a lot of the same complaints that we've already seen by previous posters, let me just say that I'm extremely disappointed.  My company just paid Symantec a lot of money for licenses, and now I'm already searching for a plan to get away from Backup Exec as soon as possible.  This is not a threat.  It's just an unfortunate reality.  I am literally sick to my stomach over this.