Problem connecting to remote agent on Exchange server - Error e000846b

[kansas]

Hi All,

I recently applied Windows patches to a couple of Exchange servers (Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter). Backup Exec (2010 R3) can now only see one of the servers, but not the other one. My backup jobs are failing with "e000846b - The resource could not be backed up because an error occurred while connecting to the Backup Exec for Windows Servers Remote Agent." I confirmed that the patches that were applied to the servers were identical on both.

This configuration has been running for a couple of years with no issues until now.  Things I have tried:

1.  Restarted Backup Exec Remote Agent on the server

2.  Telnet to the server on port 10000 is successful

3.  Confirmed the media server is listed in the Publishing tab of the Backup Exec Remote Agent Utility

4.  Confirmed the published name for the agent

5.  Confirmed I can ping the media server from the Exchange server and vice-versa.

6.  Confirmed the remote agent version is the same on all machines (13.0.5204.127).

7.  Checked the properties on the server from Backup Exec and it shows the remote agent is installed and has a status of running, but it shows the version as "Not Available".

This is my production Exchange server so I can't reboot it any time soon.

Any thoughts or suggestions on anything else I can try?

[Siddhant_Saini]

Hello,

Do you use a different account(apart from the Backup Exec system account (BESA)) to backup the Exchange server? If yes, then in Backup Exec console go to Network - Logon Accounts and update the credentials of that account. Also, I'd suggest you to update the BESA by doing the following: 

1. In Backup Exec console go to Network - Logon Accounts and update the credentials for BESA.
 
2. Go to Tools - Backup Exec Services - Service Credentials - update service account .
 
3. Restart all Backup Exec services for the changes to take effect.

The BESA must have correct privileges to access the remote server. As such, you might need to verify that on the Exchange Server as well. 

[pkh]

1) Check the SCL to ensure that your version of Exchange is supported

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH137682

2) If IPv6 is enabled on either the media server or the Exchange server, disable it.

[kansas]

Hi sidd3009,

Yes, I have confirmed the local system account on both the media server and the Exchange server.  I am able to see my other Exchange server that uses the same credentials from Backup Exec with no issues.

Thanks for the suggestion!

[kansas]

Hi pkh,

Thanks for the response - yes my version of Exchange is supported.  This configuration has been running for a couple of years with no issues and my other Exchange server that is the same version is working with no issues.

I did confirm that IPv6 is disabled on the media server and the Exchange servers.

[VJware]

Have you tried reinstalling the Remote Agent and a reboot on the "affected" Exchange server ?

[kansas]

Hi VJware - Thanks for your response.

I have rebooted the Exchange server and still have the issue, but I have not yet tried to reinstall the remote agent.  Should I do a manual install or push from the media server? Should I uninstall the remote agent from the Exchange server before reinstalling?

[VJware]

I would recommend to first uninstall the agent and then do a push install. Uninstall usually requires a reboot and best to plan for it.

[BEguy]

You can probably check if the license was removed somehow. Try installing the license once again. This happened with me once.

[kansas]

Thank you VJware - I will try this during my next outage window.

[kansas]

Hi BEguy - thanks for the response.  Are you talking about the Agent for Microsoft Exchange Server?  I have a license key for it on my media server.

[BEguy]

Yes I was talking about the Agent for Microsoft Exchange Server license. Is this Exchange 2010? If yes is the account part of Organization Management group?

[kansas]

Thanks for the suggestion.  Yes, this is Exchange 2010 and yes, the BE account is a member of the Exchange Organization Management group on both of my Exchange servers.  This configuration has been working on both of my Exchange servers for a couple of years, but suddenly stopped working on 1 of them.

[BEguy]

I have a question here. It gives you an error - Unable to connect to remote agent. Is it talking about Exchange server? When you will open the job log it mentions the server name. Just read out the entire error and confirm whether it is talking about Exchange server or Backup server.

[kansas]

Yes, the error is connecting to one of my Exchange servers when I browse it from the media server.  I am able to browse to my other Exchange server from the media server with no issues.

[kansas]

Well, no joy.  I uninstalled the remote agent from the Exchange server, rebooted, and pushed the remote agent install to the Exchange server.  The install was successful and everything looks good with the remote agent settings on the Exchange server, but I still get a network error on the media server when I try to browse the Exchange server.  I tried removing the media server and re-adding in the remote agent utility just to make sure it had the right credentials, but still can't connect to the server from the media agent.  I restarted the BE services on the media server and for good measure, rebooted the BE server, but still the same result.

[VJware]

SGMon debugging on both servers should help. http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH124453

Attach or PM me the Sgmon logs from both servers.

Secondly, do you get the network error while trying to browse the C:\ of the Exchange server or the Information Store ? If the latter, then it is most likely an issue with permissions than network connectivity.

[kansas · Accepted solution]

Finally resolved the issue.  I was checking everything again and while checking netstat on both of my Exchange servers (as suggested here http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH84759) I found that another process was listening on port 10000.  We had installed a NetApp/CommVault backup product for evaluation purposes, set those services to manual startup, but one of them had started for some reason (consitently apparently, since I had done multple reboots) and was listening on 10000, preventing BE from communicating with the remote agent.  Interestingly enough, the same service was running on the other Exchange server that was successfully communicating with the media server.  Stopped and disabled the service on both Exchange servers and the backup of my information stores is now running.

Thanks all for your suggestions and help!  Very much appreciated!

[kansas]

Thanks for the suggestion VJware - I have resolved the issue - another process was listening on 10000. Details below. I'll keep SGMon in mind for next time! I was getting the network error when I tried to browse anything on that specific Exchange server - c:, info store, etc.