Media location no changed to offline after eject

[Ken_Rode]

I have a utility that checks to be sure our clients have a tape installed each day. It works well at all but one location. At that client, tapes never move from Online to Offline after the jobs complete.

The client is running Backup Exec version 9.1 with all the latest updates and service packs on Windows 2000 (also fully patched). The drive is use is an HP LTO Ultrium-2. The tapes automatically eject at the end of the job but Backup Exec does not move the tape from Online to Offline.

The utility runs an inventory and then a test job. For most clients, if a tape is not inserted, the test job fails due to insufficient online storage. For this client is passes as it see 4TB+ online

Thanks for any thoughts you can offer

Ken

[Ken_Rode]

After more testing, it appears what is actually happening is that when the Inventory job is run, all the tapes that were listed as offline move to the online location. However, if the inventory is not run, BE won't see the new tape and all test jobs will fail.

Stuck in a bit of a catch-22 here.....don't run inventory - test run always fails; run inventory - test run always passes. Kind of makes the test run useless.

[Rucha_Abhyankar]

Hi Ken,

With what utility are you trying to do this.

Please elaborate the procedure in which it is done.

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[Ken_Rode]

Hi Rucha,

Thank you for the reply. The utility is actually unimportant as I can manually repeat the behavior......

1.) After a backup job is finished and automatically ejected, the media locations are correct with all tapes shown as offline and none shown as online.
2.) Running an inventory at this point (without a tape in the drive) moves all the offline media to online.
3.) As a large number of media are listed as online, any test jobs from that point believe that there is sufficient storage to complete the job (though there is actually no tape in the drive).

At first I thought tapes were never moved to the offline location but I updated the posting when I found that they are offline until an inventory job is run. Since the original posting, I have confirmed that this occurs at multiple clients running BE for Windows version 9.1 fully patched. I am planning to test it on a 10.x client this morning.

Thanks again,

Ken

[Ken_Rode]

Further information.......

This occurs both with version 10d and 9.1. If there is no tape in the drive, an inventory moves all media listed in the offline location to online. If there is a tape inserted, the inventory job manages media locations properly. I have verified this at multiple customer sites.

That elimantes the usefullness of test jobs as a way to verify backups are ready to run.

[Gauri_Ketkar]

Hi,

refer this technote :

How to move media from the Offline media pool to an Online Media Pool in Backup Exec 9.x and 10.x for Windows Servers .
http://support.veritas.com/docs/284725


Update us on the same and revert for any further Query



Thank you
Gauri

[Ken_Rode]

The only association that has with the problem I have found is that it refers to media sets. It was absolutely no help.

[priya_khire]

Hello Ken,

What type of a device are you using: is it a library or a standalone drive? In case of a library, how many slots does it have?

Do you mean to say that the Inventory job is successful even when there are no tapes in the drive? As per the technote below, inventory monts the tapes in the drive:

http://support.veritas.com/docs/269948

Verify if there are any errors in the alerts tab when this happens. Since when does this problem occur? Are you getting any device related errors in the Windows system logs?

[Ken_Rode]

It is a stand-alone tape drive in all instances (the same things happens at all client sites we manage both in version 9.1 and 10d).

When an inventory is run with no tape in the drive it completes successfully, reports success and lists the drive as empty.

However, it also moves all tapes that were listed as offline into the online media location.

This makes running a scheduled test job useless. Because the inventory incorrectly changes media locations when the drive is empty, the test always passes.......it either correctly sees that a tape is online or incorrectly sees all previous media used as online.

If you have access to a system running your software, just try it.......As I stated, it happens at multiple locations with various drives and both version 9.1 and 10d

[Amruta_Bhide]

Hello,

Inventory is meant to be run if you change the media in the robotic library or device. If you do not run an Inventory at that point, the previous media is still displayed as being in the device.

If you run an Inventory on an empty drive, it will show the offline or previous medias in this case as online !!


Thanks
Regards

[Ken_Rode]

And that makes sense to you? An inventory on an empty drive should report all known media online even though nothing is?

Apparently we will need to continue verifying the tapes manually until we can transition all our clients away from Backup Exec