Intermittant Backup Scan / Pre-processing for 7 hours

[Dan_Price]

It seems like many people posting here have a similar problem with jobs getting stuck on pre-processing, but mine is slightly different in that it's only stuck for 7 hours, then the actual backup begins (during production hours).

Backup Server:

BE 9.1 Rev. 4691
Windows 2003 Server, SP1
Two HP Ultrium drives

Remote servers being backed up by the affected job:

Exchange 2003
Windows 2003 Server, SP1
Remote agent installed
Symantec AV and Symantec Mail Security 4.6 for Exchange

File Server
Windows 2003 Server, SP1
Remote agent installed
Symantec AV

The backup job runs at 11pm each weekday. The resource order on the job lists the Exchange server first. The order of items on this server is:

Shared Folder: .LOG
Shared Folder: Resources$
Shared Folder: Address
C:
D:
Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes
Microsoft Exchange Public Folders
Shadow Copy Components

On nights the backup runs successfully, it backs up 63GB in just over 6 hours. When the job hangs in pre-processing, it won't actually begin backing up data until about 6am. When I check at 8am, it is only 10% through the backup and estimates 20 hours remaining. If I let it continue, it will actually finish by noon.

Again, this is intermittent. The long pre-processing has only occurred 3 times in the past 8 backups. It doesn't seem to be specific to any day of the week.

Another job runs concurrently with this one on the other drive. It backs up 10 smaller servers totaling 60GB and completes in 3.5 hours with no problems.

I tried running a test backup of a single mailbox folder on Exchange and that ran just fine. But then I expect the next 2 or 3 nightly backups will work fine too, and the next one will get the long pre-processing.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to nail down the cause of this? Is there any way to find out what is going on during the preprocessing? Any processes or ports I can monitor? On either the backup server or the servers being backed up?

[tejashree_Bhate]

Hello,

Are you using AOFO to backup Exchange?

Install latest Veriats drivers and verify results.

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Thanks.

[Dan_Price]

AOFO is enabled and the method used was VSS on every backup item except for Exchange Mailboxes and Public Folders, which did not use AOFO.

What do you mean by Veritas "drivers"?

[Amruta_Purandar]

Hello,

- Please refer the following technotes.

Title:
When using Backup Exec 9.x or 10.0 for Windows Servers, jobs stop responding in the "pre-processing" state indefinitely.
http://support.veritas.com/docs/256287

Title:
Backup jobs stay in a "pre-processing" state when using the Advanced Open File Option in Backup Exec 9.0
http://support.veritas.com/docs/256123

Title:
Backup job operations using Open File Option appear to stop responding and is set to the "Pre-processing" state.
http://support.veritas.com/docs/236601

- Are you backing up to a tape device? Please install latest drivers for the device.

VERITAS Backup Exec (tm) 9.1 - Device Driver Installer (20050115) - Includes Tape Driver Release (20041231) and Robotic Library Release (45) (Intel Only)

http://support.veritas.com/docs/273853


NOTE : If we do not receive your reply within two business days, this post would be marked assumed answered and would be moved to answered questions pool.

[Dan_Price]

Thanks for the suggestions...

Technote 256287 seems to be irrelevent because the job does not "stop responding in the 'pre-processing' state indefinitely". I checked and the registry value is 1 on the backup server and 0 on both of the servers backed up by the job. I'll come back and try this if nothing else works.

Technote 256123 mentions an error message I am not seeing. My job does not log any error messages (except a note that it was canceled if I cancel it). However, I will try looking for that .TMP file before each backup starts. Does "target server" mean the backup server (target of the data) or the server being backed up (target of the job)?

Technote 236601 suggests that one of the servers being backed up might have an intermittent condition that causes the creation of the static volume to take abnormally long. (Normally the job takes 35 minutes to pre-process, but when the intermittent problem arises, it takes 7 hours. There is no in-between.) I will try monitoring the remote servers at the time of the backup to see what other activity is going on.

Our two HP LTO Ultrium-2 drives are using Veritas driver version 5.0.1.1, 9/2/2003. Does the driver update mentioned in technote 273853 have a newer version of this specific driver?

[priya_khire]

Hello,

Target server as per the technote http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/256123.htm is the server being backed up.
Driver release 273853 is the latest release currently for 9.1.
In case you have not installed SP 3 for backup exec,install it from the following link and then test the results. It has several correctoins from the prevous versions. Here is the link for the download:

VERITAS Backup Exec (tm) 9.1 for Windows Servers revision 4691 - Service Pack 3
http://support.veritas.com/docs/278302

You will need to resinstall all the remote agents after this upgrade to SP 3. Do also update if the previous technotes helped in resolving the problem or not. Hope this helps. If the issue persists, revert with details.

Note : If we do not receive your reply within two business days, this post would be marked ‘assumed answered’ and would be moved to ‘answered questions’ pool.

Regards.

[Dan_Price]

I cannot install SP3 at this time because reinstalling all the remote agents would need to be a weekend project here.

I will accept the answer that the software is flawed and needs to be patched or upgraded, so I'll mark this question as answered, but I don't know if it's actually correct.

Thanks for your help.