Pre Job not executed when remote machine not up (sometimes!)

[strger2012]

I upgraded an existing BE2010 to BE2012.

Had some Jobs to backup client machines (B2D), which are shutdown,

waked up via batch job in the pre/post section of the job and afterwards shutdown again.

Now I created a new job for a new client and somehow the pre-job is not executed and the job is canceled.

Checked for all the things possible and found out that when the machine is already running, the pre-job is executed and the job runs ok!

Seems that backup exec is checking first of all if the machine is running, if ok then the prejob is executed.

I have about 5 Jobs with clients which are ok and function, compared the job-definition, no idea why this is not working any more!

Any ideas?

[RahulG]

refer the following post 

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/backup-exec-2012-frustrated-aggravated-and-really-ann...

you may use the BEMCLI option

[strger2012]

Sure this is a possibility, but not the answer to the main problem.

Beside that, it´s no answer to the question why it sometimes works.

Maybe Symantec has enough to do with all the bugs in their new version,

but maybe someday there will be a better version?

Would be maybe helpful to understand what BE does before it executes Pre-Jobs.

But only Sym can answer the question?

[pkh]

How did you specify the pre-command in your job?  You should not specify "on each server backed up".  If this is specified, then the pre-command is executed on the remote machine and will not work if it is down.  You should specify "on the Backup Exec server"

You can also specify the "Run job only if pre-command is successful", so if the pre-command fails and the remote machines are down, your job willl not run.

[strger2012]

Option "on the Backup Exec Server" is set. Problem is that the precommand should start the client, but the job is canceled before (but on other clients this is ok).

So it seems to be some (hidden?) option to tell backup exec to first do the precommand and then try to check the client for backup purposes.

As said before, job is run, when the client is online, but not executed when offline.

Other (same) Jobs on other clients are ok!

[pkh]

If the client cannot be started by the pre-command, then obviously the job will fail.  The pre-command is always executed before the start of the job.  You should trouble-shoot why your pre-command is not starting up the client.

[strger2012]

1) I have a batch job which works correctly when executed manual.

2) Batch Jobs works if the client is already running (first line of my batch job writes text in a log-file) - so no security issue!

3) Batch Job is not startet when client is offline (no entry in log file)

So Backup Exec is obviously something checking in this case before the precommand is executed!

What tasks is BE doing before?

[strger2012]

I found the reason!

The backup job for this client had a local SQL-Instance in the selection list!

BE first checks for presence of the instance and then starts the precommand (can be seen in the log file).

Seems the pre-command is only executed before the disk selections!!!!

[strger2012]

Additional Information:

The same problem occurs, if the system state is on top of the selection list.

Is there any possibility to change the order in the selection list of BE2012?

In earlier editions it did!