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Switching full tapes during duplicate jobs failed

dennisblotenbur
Level 3

Hi all,

I’ve a problem with our duplicates to tape:

When a tape is full, the job is automatically set to Queued and will not take the next (empty) tape, although there are available tapes.

For your information, I’ll add some details about our configuration:

  • Back-up Exec 2012

  • We use media sets, there are enough (empty) tapes available in the affected media sets

  • Tape drive: NEO400S

  • Tape capacity: 1.47 TB

We had this issue since we migrated from Backup Exec 2010 to Backup Exec 2012.

The most current back-up exec 2012 updates are installed.

The only customization we did was changing the media description as described in this article.

My question is, does any one of you know how to make a “duplicate to tape” job automatically proceed to the next tape if the current tape is full?

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

VJware
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

Is the next available tape a "scratch" or an "overwriteable" tape ? If not, and if the second tape is only appendable, the backup (or duplicate) cannot move on to the next tape.
 

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14 REPLIES 14

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified
Are there any alerts asking for overwritable tape?

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified
Is your tape library partitioned and the tapes are in different partitions? If so, then, BE will not fetch tapes from other partitions

dennisblotenbur
Level 3

Hi pkh,

Thanks for your reply.

On both questions is the answer no, we had no alerts and we don't use the partitions option.

dennisblotenbur
Level 3

does anyone of you know what I can do or check to solve this issue?

VJware
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

First, do ensure the option to automatically display new alerts is enabled under BE button - Configuration & Settings - Backup Exec settings - Preferences.

Secondly, under the Storage section of the Duplicate stage, is it set to append to media, overwrite if not available or other option ?

Do all duplicates to tape fail to span to the second tape or are these specific jobs such as GRT enabled backups ?

dennisblotenbur
Level 3

Hi VJware,

Thanks for your reply.

1) I just had enabled the automatically display new alerts. I hope this helps me to find more information about the issues.

2) The duplicates are set to "append to media, terminate job if no appendable media is available.

3) The jobs they are failing are jobs with and without GRT enabled.

For now, I will check there are other alerts and share them here. If you've other suggestions, please let me know.

Regards,

Dennis

 

VJware
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

2) The duplicates are set to "append to media, terminate job if no appendable media is available.

Change this instead to Append to media, overwrite job...

dennisblotenbur
Level 3

Hi VJware,

Thanks for your reply.

I will change the duplicate jobs like as you say. After this weekend (when the duplicates runs) I will check if it's working. Will be continued.

Regards,

Dennis

dennisblotenbur
Level 3

Hi VJware,

Unfortunately it hasn't work, I've just yet the same error: the job is set to queued. I need to cancel the job, otherwise BE occupying the tape drive and thas has as result that the other external jobs can't run.

The logs don't show specific reasons about the failure.

Is there anything that I can do to investigate it more?

Kind regards,

Dennis

Laurie_Downey
Level 6
Employee

Have you tried recycling the tape device by executing the steps in the order they are listed below:

  1. Power down the Backup Exec Server
  2. Power down the tape device
  3. Once the device is fully powered down, power the tape device back on
  4. Wait until the device is fully powered up and ready for a command
  5. Power on the Backup Exec Server

Also, if you manually run a job does is it still placed into a "queued" status?

 

dennisblotenbur
Level 3

Hi Laurie,

 

Thanks for your reply!

I will try that!

And yes, also the "manual jobs" wil has the queued status. But this is only happens when the tape is full, it's not switching from the full tape to the available empty tape.

Regards,

Dennis

VJware
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

Is the next available tape a "scratch" or an "overwriteable" tape ? If not, and if the second tape is only appendable, the backup (or duplicate) cannot move on to the next tape.
 

dennisblotenbur
Level 3

Hi VJware,

I add the next available tapes to a media set so I think the tape is not specific a "scratch" tape.

For test I will add the tapes to "scratch" and see if this works fine. 

I will post the updates about this next monday because I'm not able to test this before the weekend.

Regards, 

Dennis

dennisblotenbur
Level 3

Hi VJWare,

Your suggestion helps me to resolve the issue. I've added the tapes to the scratch media set, all jobs are running fine now.

Everyone realy thanks for helping!

Regards,

Dennis