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Remote agent errors

Exchange_Agent
Level 4
I get this error every night and stops backing up!

Completed status: Failed
Final error: 0xe000fe30 - A communications failure has occurred.
Final error category: Server Errors

For additional information regarding this error refer to link
and
The connection to target system has been lost. Backup set cancelled

No the communication to the server has never been lost so why does the remote agent think that this has been lost!

Can anyone help?

Veritas 11d is a nightmare system and needs to be change so it works 100% of the time!
Bring back version 8.6




37 REPLIES 37

The_STN_Guy
Level 4
Hi Agent,
 
Sorry for the confusion. These are peer-to-peer support forums. If you want to talk to Enterprise Symantec Support.... if you want to contact a Symantec support agent, please visit Support Services. Symantec employees post here from time to time as part of the community -- but this IS NOT a paid support option.
 
 
Best,
Dieds

Exchange Agent wrote:
Does anyone know if there is an award for the worst Support Forum as I think this site will win!
Does anyone recommend any other backup software for Windows 2003 as Symantec's just dosen't work. I wish I had never purchased a copy.
 
I have been in IT support for over 10 years and never spent so long trying to resolve these problems.

Anyone who is considering purchasing version 11d forget it as it this must be the worst backup software on the market.



Exchange_Agent
Level 4
Dieds
 
I think you have that wrong. If you havent then I do think you need to inform other people at Symantec.
I have already phoned your support and they told me that I have to use the forums to get my problem resolved.

Why should I have to pay a support contract when its your software at fault?

I have never had any issues like this before using any other backup software and it seems like numerous people are having a similar problem. Symantec seem to have brushed this issue aside and try to hide from it.

 

Ben_L_
Level 6
Employee
Justin,

I have reviewed both the cases you opened for this issue and it seems the issue is very intermiten now.  Is the problem still occuring? (sorry I have to ask).

Since I'm assuming that there still is an issue, I have a few quesitons.

1. How many servers are you having this issue on?  From what I can see in the case notes it's just one.

2. I noticed you have 8 media servers, are you using CAS?

3. When the job loses connection does this seem to happen around the same time or is it at random times?

4. Does the remote server have multiple NIC's? Does the Media server?

5. Can you run a vxgather from the media server that runs this backup job and upload it to the ftp?  For the case number either use one of your previous case number or all zeros.  Let me know when/if that can be completed and the filename.  http://support.veritas.com/docs/285911

Thanks,

Kent_Wyatt
Level 3
Agent/Justin -
 
Not sure if this will help, I just upgraded to v11 from v10 and when backup process a remote server it causes the remote agent to crash and then fails with unable to contact remote agent. The log links took me too the KB's that talk about loss of network connectivity, but eventually I found a post that talks about v11 being incompatible with DFS replication.
 
I modified my selection list for the servers to exclude Shadow Copy Components > User Data > Distributed File System Replication and at least for some test runs and one overnight run, the remote agents have not crashed on those servers any longer.
 
I feel your support woes though, we pay for support and its gotten us nowhere. Perhaps it will prove useful in an emergency, but from our experience even with paid support once you get beyond all the basics posted in these forums already they leave you out to dry.

Peter_Ludwig
Level 6
I have a similar (if not the same issue) and the bare agent causes trouble on our Excahnge 2007 server. I have more or less given up.

Ben_L_
Level 6
Employee
Peter,

Can you start a new thread for the issue and send me the link to the thread?  Include as much information as possible, specifically the errors section from the job log and what you are backing up on that server?  Have you opened a case for the issue, if so send me the case number so I can look over that as well.

Thanks,

Justin_Bell
Level 4
Well, I do have a support contract, but it hasn't done me any good.  I'm stil not getting any response from the tech I was assigned to and I even have an open case: 290829710.  I sent him an e-mail and he said he was too busy to call me back...
 
It seems as though Symantec has so many customers now that it doesn't matter how they treat them.  I started with symantec support in 1999, and it has been steadily declining as the company has gotten larger.  I'm turoughly dissapointed.
 
That being said, try blowing away your database and recreating it.  You will need to re-create all your jobs.  I did this a few days ago and I haven't gotten the error yet.
 
-Justin

Ben_L_
Level 6
Employee
Justin,

I have moved your case (290-829-710) from our front line que to the 2nd teir.  You should be getting a call back today on this (not sure of a time frame at the moment).


Regards,


Exchange_Agent
Level 4
Justin
 
I wouldn't blame it on the quantity of customers I would blame it more on their quality of Software..

Since version 8.x their software has slowly deteriorated and now their Tech support (I think there must be no more than 2) are probability over worked supporting an alpha version product.
 
Whats the procedure removing the database?

Justin_Bell
Level 4
I apologize for the spelling error in the previous post.
 
I'll start with the questions from Ben:
 
I have reviewed both the cases you opened for this issue and it seems the issue is very intermittent now.  Is the problem still occurring? (sorry I have to ask).  On Friday I went ahead and completely deleted the Database and recreated all the jobs.  The problem has not occurred since then.  I typically would not do something like this with a case open, but since I had sent multiple e-mails and had no response I became a little desperate.

Since I'm assuming that there still is an issue, I have a few questions.

1. How many servers are you having this issue on?  From what I can see in the case notes it's just one.
This install consists of one Media server (stand alone) and one remote agent.  The Media server is installed on an exchange server.  Besides backing up Exchange we do not have any other options installed such as AOFO or anything like that.

2. I noticed you have 8 media servers, are you using CAS?
NO

3. When the job loses connection does this seem to happen around the same time or is it at random times?
It is always random - I can run the job at any time during the day and it will happen.  These servers are up all the time, none of our other apps ever come back with any communication errors.  The interesting thing about this particular problem is that all the data is actually backed up.  The errors were showing up at the end of the log for each drive (after the last folder was listed as being successfully backed up).  Therefore I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the database and poor reporting on the remote agent.  The Remote agent does not crash, or at least it does not say that crashes and there are no system or application logs indicating a crash.

4. Does the remote server have multiple NIC's? Does the Media server?
 
They both have 2 nics for failover - Currently they both have one nic enabled and one disabled.

5. Can you run a vxgather from the media server that runs this backup job and upload it to the ftp?  For the case number either use one of your previous case number or all zeros.  Let me know when/if that can be completed and the filename.  http://support.veritas.com/docs/285911
 
Would you still like this?  The problem hasn't happened since Thursday night (before I blew away the database)

Kent - thanks for the post - that was initially my thought as well (as mentioned I have 8 media servers so I had seen that).  I don't have the shadow copy components selected for either of the servers.

 

Ben - I appreciate you looking into this matter.  I hope this means someone there actually cares about providing good support.


Ben_L_
Level 6
Employee
Justin,

I won't need the file at this time, but you may still want to have it ready for when the technician contacts you.

This install consists of one Media server (stand alone) and one remote agent.  The Media server is installed on an exchange server.  Besides backing up Exchange we do not have any other options installed such as AOFO or anything like that.


So when the job fails, is it failing on the remote server or both the local and remote servers?  Just curious because you said that it gave errors at the end of each drive.  I just want to make sure we are looking at the correct issue.  If it is showing it for the local drives as well, then there may have been some corruption in the database.


Justin_Bell
Level 4
Sorry for not being clear.  The only errors I get are off the remote server.  Which and how many drives fail is seemingly random.  Sometimes it's only the remote server's C: drive, other times it's all 4 drives (on the remote server) and all combinations in between.
 
Thanks for escalating this issue.  I got an e-mail this afternoon from a seemingly knowledgeable tech.  I think he felt bad that the old tech was so bad.

Peter_Ludwig
Level 6
Ben Lipsey wrote:

>Can you start a new thread for the issue and send me the link to the thread?  Include as much information as possible,

No, the decision was made two levels higher: Remove all BE 11 Agents immediately. So I cannot make any tests now.

As long as there is no decision if we continue to work with BE at all.
I write this only to show how much this 'problems' shattered our confidence.

greetings
Peter

iSols
Level 2
Same issue for one of my customers...
 
Job ended: mardi, 14. août 2007 at 04:36:24Completed status: FailedFinal error: 0xe000fe30 - A communications failure has occurred.Final error category: Server Errors
 
It appears only on 2 servers /9, All of them are Virtual Machines on VMWare, based on the same image, so it's not related to hardware/network card, drivers or OS...
 
If I check the Agent Service, it's running, restarting them solve the problem for the 2-3 days and the error reoccurs after..
 
 

Justin_Bell
Level 4
May have figured out the problem - try resetting, or turning off the cache settings for your tape drive.  By default we usually max out, or at least get close to the max for the cache settings.  It looks as though when we change them on this media server we get the communication error.  I haven't done enough testing to prove without a doubt, but I'm pretty sure.
 
Can you try the default settings and let me know if it works?

Exchange_Agent
Level 4
I have tried everything unselecting loads of files not to back up and changing the cache on the tape drive.
This has worked for about 2 weeks but last night I got a failure.
 
I don't think they Symantic have a clue on how to fix this error or if they do they aren't going to support their customers in fixing this error.

We all need to stop using Symantec and never renew our licenses they then may take notice...

Exchange_Agent
Level 4
Hot fix 14 installed and now not getting a successful backup!

Any one got any ideas?
 
 

Backupexec
Not applicable
i hvae the same problem. Have it been resolved?

Pls tell me how to deal with this problem.

Thanks so much.