Problem with the "Backup Exec Remote Agent for Windows Systems" pour BE 12.00Rev1364SP2

[Damien75]

Hi,

I have installed windows backup exec on one server "windows 2003 server" and the remote agent provided with the CD on a second server running under windows 2000 server.

It does work perfectly during 3 days but after 3 days the backup exec server block at the 1st phase "pretreatment".

When I open the remote agent on the remote server I'm not seeing any connection. I try then to stop the service which cancel the JOB on the backup exec server.

then when I try to start it again I have the message : "ERROR 1053 : The service did respond quick enough at the start command"

When I restart the server everything come back to normal

any help would be appreciated

Damien

[Kevin_Cotreau]

You did everything I would have done for now, except wait. Every computer and application hangs from time to time and a reboot often takes care of that. Only if this keeps happening enough to disrupt your network do you start to worry about it. If this happened again in 6 months, that is not a problem, but if this happens again this week, you have a problem, and we would need more information.

For future reference I am not sure what you meant by pre-treatment...maybe snapshot processing?

I would advise that you make sure your server has the lates VSS patch installed (no reboot required):

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ae17b7ef-3c02-496a-bb46-770c04e42b5c&Displa...

[Damien75]

Hi,

Thanks for the answer.

FYI I waited for 2 days before cancelling the job and when i click on cancel the job it does freeze.

The job does really cancel when i try to restart the remote agent on the distant machine.

Also I maybe forgot to mention that i installed the remote agent on a windows 2000 server machine. Does it matter ?

I will install today the patch you mentioned on the server where the backup exec server is intaledd

regards

damien

[Kevin_Cotreau]

I am not sure if I understand fully, but here is what I would do if I were you since you only seem to have two servers (I might do it differently since I have more experience with what might work or not work if I only stop/start service or reboot a particular computer, but this will work, so I will tell you to be more complete):

As soon as you realize the job is hung, and can reasonably reboot, I would reboot both the media server (where BE is installed) and the remote server, in that order.

It should not matter that the remote agent is on Windows 2000, but keep in mind that there is certainly less testing done on such an old OS with new versions of any software, and more importantly, if your Windows 2000 ever goes down hard and need Microsoft Support, they will not help you. That product has been end-of-life'd.

[Damien75]

In fact i have 4 servers 2*windows 2003 server and 2*windows 2000 server.

I know that windows 200 is quite old but do you suggest for my backup.

I have an old version of veritas backup (8.6), It would be then maybe better to install again this soft instead of the remote agent.

What do you think?

[Kevin_Cotreau]

I seriously doubt that I would install that old version of BE and bother managing two tape drives. I only mentioned Server 2000 because anyone using that should have planned to upgrade a long time ago. That could bite you in the butt a number of ways like not being able to get support, or unpatched security flaws that leave you vulnerable to worms. You should never run End-of-Life OSes, in my opinion, and chances are that your server hardware is on its last leg too.

I will say this about backup strategy: If you have servers that are very complex (my one-man-company' server runs Exchange 2007, SQL 2008, and SharePoint 2007), I would combine a server-imaging product with backups. I image my server using Acronis True Image Server and then back that up to tape. I also still do regular backups too.

It has been my experience that disaster recovery does not always go smoothly and there can be significant troubleshooting after the restore, IF the server even reboots. An image just comes back up every time based on my experience (I have tested both methods extensively, so it is not like I have servers really dying left and right :)).

It is also important to note that Symantec has a similar product called System Restore 8.5. It is also important to point out that both products can restore to dissimilar hardware so if your server dies totally and you buy a new server, they can create a new Hardware Application Layer (HAL) so the new server will boot.

[Damien75]

Thanks for your reply but as far as i understand there is no solution except upgrading my server to 2003 or install the old version of veritas!!!!

[Michael_McKenne]

RAWS agent / AOFO should work on Windows 2000 SP4.  Upgrading the 2000 servers to 2003 would be a good idea because Microsoft is not supporting 2000.  You also get all the servers on the same version.   I would start by restarting all the servers and clearing the event logs.  Set logging to verbose in BE.  Get all the latest live updates and reinstall the RAWS agent on each remote box.  Make sure the firewall exclusions for file / print sharing and WMI are enabled if you use a firewall.  Exclude all the BE and SQL services from your anti-virus scanning. 

I tried to installed the RAWS 12.5 agent for Vista.  Stay with 12 for now.  Don't upgrade to 12.5.  It added nothing. 

[Kevin_Cotreau]

Yes, nowhere did I say or intend to imply that the RAWS would not work with Server 2000, but rather I was giving general network administration advice there with regards to eventually upgrading Server 2000 for other reasons.

Message Edited by Kevin Cotreau on 12-17-2008 10:12 AM

[Kevin_Cotreau]

Michael, while some of that is good advice, keep in mind, at least according to what he posted, he has only had the issue once (unless he clarifies that it was nore). In that case, other than the general advice, I really don't think there is anything to troubleshoot since you don't try to fix something every time a computer hangs. You simply reboot, and if it happens again, only then do you look for a problem. You don't want people troubleshooting non-existent problems and potentially breaking things that may not be broken. Who knows, maybe his hardware overheated and caused it. If it does not repeat, you don't try to fix it.

I would make sure that everything is updated as you state (I kind of assumed that he would have all updates on something that has not been updated further in a year or more), and exclude the Exchange Directories from anti-virus scanning regardless of what AV you are running based on this document:

http://service1.symantec.com/support/ent-security.nsf/854fa02b4f5013678825731a007d06af/319f829dcf9ce...

There is no such equivalent document for excluding SQL server directories, so I would not exclude them.

As far as setting BE to verbosely log anything and troubleshooting it, I would hold off and see if it is truly a problem, although checking the System and Application logs to see if there are an BE failures makes sense.

[Damien75]

hi guys,

thanks for all those advice.

To answer your question.

The problem did not happen only one time, this is the 3 rd time it happened (once a week).

All systems are up to date.

I just wanted to know how i can put verbose mode for remote agent and BE.

Then i will restart my server and when it will bug again i'll let you know logs

regards

damien

[Kevin_Cotreau]

I did heavily reference how many times it happened in the very first reply, so when you didn't say anything to the contrary, I assumed it was just the one time, so my apologies to Michael.

I would clear out my Windows Application and System logs, follow the document below, and then reboot.

Post any errors that are related to this. Reboot the remote server too maybe after following the advice below.

I would also consider unintalling the Remote agent, deleting the install directory and any registry entries (if you are VERY at home editing the registry),  and reinstalling since this problem seems more related to the remote computer than the media server. I am assuming that since you have said that it hangs during the pre-processing of that remote computer only (so far). Often these things are cause by network issues, so if you can test that network card, that is worth trying too.

http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/275639.htm

[Damien75]

hi there

following all your reply i'm still having the problem.

I did let the process run for one week without success

Any new information you could give me ?

regards

damien

[Carl_Love]

I'm having the same issue as you but have a 12.5 version installed my backups will work after a reboot for 1 to 3 days and then fail at pre-processing. The Server I'm trying to backup is a windows 2000 SP4 server all current patches. I also have found after it fails that I can't restart the agent without a reboot. I've been working with support for about a month with no results. Something else I noted it won't let you push the agent from the media server it gives you an error that there is not enough space even though there is over a GB of free space. If you have found the solution please post the answer.