Ready; no media servers are available - BE 2010 R3 Server 2008 SP2 (x64)

[Mo_Chowdhury]

Hi,

I’m having a problem with Backup Exec and not backing up any jobs at all the moment – the job status states on all jobs (disks and tape) ‘Ready; no media servers are available’. I am running BE 2010 R3 with all latest patches and updates on a Server 2008 SP2 (x64) box.

This is both Disk backups and tape backups – I have done the following: -

·         Ensured all updates are up to date via LiveUpdate

·         Restarted all BE services

·         Paused ALL devices, disable and re-enable

·         Uninstalled the drivers for the tape drive and disk, restarted the server (a couple of times), re-installed the drivers again

Done the above to no avail and still comes up with that message (Ready; no media server are available)

On the devices tab, I noticed that the media server states ‘Discovering Devices’. After I restart the services or server, all the devices are offline and I have to enable them manually but still states this message ‘Discovering Devices’. When I attempt to perform a job, then it comes up with that message in the job status and hangs there and no way I know of getting rid of it.

At the moment none of my backups jobs are performing. Any other things I can try?

Thanks.

[Orionex]

Hello ,

Please check the event viewer . are you able to see the tape drive in windows ?

[Mo_Chowdhury]

Hi,

I've checked this and the tape drive appears on there no problem installed via the manufacturer drivers (HP USb tape drive)

I've also ran HP L&TT and it detects the device no problem and and is there - just that BE unable to detect this with the above error message I've described above with performing any backup job, and in the devices tab showing all offline.

Thanks.

[Gurvinder]

Can you check the adamm log to see if the discovery of the device completed. Adamm log can be found in BE Install Path\Logs and is appended everytime the services are restarted. Upload it if possible

[CraigV]

If it is happening with both B2D and the drive, then it can't be a hardware issue.

Try a repair of BE using Add/Remove Programs and run a repair of the BEDB through BEutility.exe.

Thanks!

[Larry_Fine · Accepted solution]

When device discovery is still happening, jobs will sit with "no media servers available".  therefore we need to focus on why your device discovery is taking so long or never completing.  Device discovery can take up to 20 minutes if there are communication issues with the hardware.

When did this problem start?  What disk & tape are you using?  What connection method (SCSI, FC, SAS, etc).

The adamm.log and tildbg.txt file would be very helpful if you can post them here.

[pkh]

Got to Add/Remove Programs and do an installation repair of BE.

If the problem still persists, do the following

1) Delete the library from BE

2) Stop the media server and the library

3) Start the tape library

4) Start the media server

5) Ensure that the library and tape drive is recognised and functioning correctly in the Windows Device Manager. The library should appear as an Unknown Medium Changer with a Microsoft driver and the tape drive should have a Symantec driver.

6) In BE, install the library if necessary.  Go to Tools --> Wizards ---> Device Configuration Wizard to do so.

[Mo_Chowdhury]

Hi guys,

Thanks for your suggestions! I think the tape drive is working now, something to do with the removable storage service which I restarted a couple of times and didn't work but all of a sudden when I restarted it the third or forth time, it picked up the tape drive immeditely and the status changed as well. I don't know whether the device discovery has something to do with that. I'm going to test with a tape now later on in the afternoon/evening when I'm back at the site.

With the backup to disk folder, we had a problem with the internal NAS box where the HDD's are in critical mode so it's not backing it up as a result and saying possibly that's offline.

I've ordered new HDD for the box and hopefully it will re-sync the config once I insert them and then should be ok to backup to disk.

Anything else you recommend before I replace the disks for BE to detect them? Or should it just detect and backup per job setup?

Thanks.

[Mo_Chowdhury]

Hi guys,

All sorted now - thanks again for your suggestions, much appreciated! 

:)

[Colin_Weaver]

The newer versiosn fo Backup Exec do not support Microsoft's removable storage, as such the RSM  service if present should be set to disabled.