Tape Ejecting when backup is queued to run

[Penny_Reed]

I have been having this problem with my backup tapes ejecting themselves when it's time for the backup to run, and at wits end as to what to do.

At first the timing of the overwrite protection was off, so I played around with the amount of time to allow overwrite fell before the actual date I was trying to overwrite the tape happens. This worked for a while.

Now I'm to the point where I have had to completely make it None for overwrite level. The tapes are still ejecting themselves!!!!!!! If you go into the media tab it says overwriteable under the overwrite protected until column, but in the "Appendable Until" column they all say "Not appendable". I think that's why the tapes are ejecting themselves.

Now what do I do?

[Ken_Putnam]

is this job an Overwrite job or an Append job that is ejecting the tape.

[Penny_Reed]

Append to Media, overwrite if no appendable media is available.

[Mike_Bowden]

I had this problem once with an older tape drive. My solution was to insert the tape, and then shut off power to the drive before it could be ejected. I turned the drive back on and it never did this again.

[Ken_Putnam]

Hmmm

if it was append only, and if the wrong media set was mounted, then the tape would eject and ask for an appendable media

Since this job is else overwrite, if the tape is past the OPP it should write.

If you do an inventory before the job runs, does the tape header appear in blue or black?
Are you sure that the tape is ejecting before the job starts, o rcould the tape be filling up and asking for another?

Any alerts or Event Viewer entries?

[Penny_Reed]

Unfortunately there are no alerts and there is nothing in the event viewer either.

I'm pretty sure that the tape is ejecting before the job starts because the job status is queued and the dialog to insert appendable media is up. If the job attempted to run, and encountered a full tape, wouldn't it show an elapsed time of how long it ran?

I'm using DLT 40gb/80gb native compressed tapes (I'm not entirely sure how that works). What exactly does that mean?

[Ken_Putnam]

40/80 means that the tape is certified to hold 40 GB of uncompresed data (when written by a compatible drive). The 80 is just a marketing thing, assuming 2:1 compresion. (something that you will very seldom see in real life)

If the job is Append Else overwrite, and it is asking for appendable media, I'd say that Veritas thinks the tape is not Overwritable (hence my question about the color when inventoried)

[Penny_Reed]

Ever since our last dialog about inventorying the tape, I have been doing it every day. The color is blue.

When the backup is successful it's 64 gb.

[Ken_Putnam]

About all that is left, then is to make sure that the tape that is mounted is in the media set that the job is calling for.

To be appendable (in vertias speak) the tape must have an active backup set on it,. be within the Append Period, and belong to the same media set that the job wants to write to