URGENT, Please !!! BE won't start

[Gary_Hurst]

I installed BE 9.1 on a windows 2000 cluster in a development domain and all was working well until it was decided the cluster was urgently required to be moved into a production domain. Now some of the BE services won't start !! 'Backup Exec Device & Media Service' fails to start with the message 'Error 1065: The database specified does not exist'. Only the Agent Browser and the Remote Agent will start. The cluster resources also fail to start.

Anyone know what I need to do ??

Thanks very much

[Ken_Putnam]

You may need to Re-Install Backup Exec

The domain gets buried in various places in the Registry when BackupExec is installed

FIrst though, check the startup properties of the BackupExec services to verify that they are starting with a account from the new domain

[Gary_Hurst]

Thanks, I'll try that. I've checked the BE service account and that is ok.

[Gary_Hurst]

OK, I deinstalled BE 9.1 from both Windows 2000 cluster nodes and started to reinstall. No problem on the first node but the second node failed with the following message:

"The Backup Exec database version you are trying to use does not match the version of this install. Schema changes have been performed on this database which do not match the executables currently being installed. Install will not be able to continue at this time. Please visit the VERITAS support website for more information."

HELP !! What do I do now ?? Perhaps the uninstall didn't work properly leaving some files behind ??

Thanks again for your help.

[Gary_Hurst]

Now totally stuck on this. Can't even do a complete deinstallation as I don't get the remove option. All the installation disk will allow me to do is continue with the installation (it's held licence details from the original failed attempt) which fails each time with same error listed in my previous post. Control panel doesn't show that it's partially installed so can't remove it from there.

Getting a bit twitchy about this. Can anyone help ?? Please ??

[uz]

I guess the BE was clustered before you have deinstalled it ?! If so, did you "uncluster" it before you started to uninstall the two BE on the nodes ? - should have done so.

Anyway : manually uninstall the BE 9.1 on the node giving you the trouble. Or at least what is left of it.
(was this the active BE cluster node before uninstall ?)

Remember, when clustering a BE you will first have two individual lokal databases and after the cluster wizard the one from the active node is beeing moved to the shared disk.
Most likely the second node still holds a lokal copy of the old database or at least a registry key for it.

Information for a manual uninstall of BE 9.1 can be found on suport.veritas.com if needed.

Regards

uz

PS: BEWS 10 offers a beutility feature to correct the database if the mediaserver name or domain has changed.
In BEWS 9.1 you would have to edit the database and Logon credentials manually.

[Charles_Lever]

Have you looked at:
http://support.veritas.com/docs/263785
"After removing a node from a clustered install of VERITAS Backup Exec (tm) 9.x for Windows Servers in a Shared Storage Configuration, the Backup Exec Job Engine and Backup Exec Server services fail to start. "

[Gary_Hurst]

Thanks for the reply. I think that it's a bit late for me to try this. The first node has had BE 9.1 uninstalled and reinstalled successfully and the second partially uninstalled. The trouble started with a domain name change and has gone downhill since !! Unfortunately, I can't see how I can now recover the database using the referenced support doc.

I've got a clearer understanding how it works now although I'm not sure how I can get out of my current mess. Thanks again.

[Gary_Hurst]

Thanks for the help.

I think that it probably was the active cluster node before I uninstalled it. Have you a link to the manual uninstall method support doc ?? I can't find it.

Many thanks

[uz]

there is no real good description on how to do it....

only one if you would like to move BE from one server to another. This TID may be helpful , even if one of the first lines state you should not do wht is described there, if BE was clustered.

But in your case you do not want to move but to uninstall BE in totel.

http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/260054.htm

maybe it is usful to run an MSI cleanup as well to get rid of MSI info about the old information.
A little help about this can be found here:
(I know, this TID is about RANT uninstall - but it works nearly the same for BEWS)

http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/272082.htm

regards

uz

[Gary_Hurst]

Thanks, Uz
I've had some feedback from Veritas support on this but I can't try the fix as the cluster servers have been physically removed for transportation to a remote site. Once they are back on the network I'll try again and, if successful, will post the solution here.

Thanks again.

[Ashwin_Apte]

Hi Gary,

Please give an update on this issue once you have the cluster back on the network.

- Regards

---------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE : If we do not receive your reply within two business days, this post would be marked "assumed answered" and would be moved to "answered questions" pool.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

[Gary_Hurst]

I've still got big problems with this. The Vmail Support Team have asked me to try various things which have all failed and yesterday I sent them installation logs for analysys. The response that I got back this morning simply gave instructions on how to cluster the software which did nothing to address the issue. Not very helpful, I'm afraid.

To repeat: The current position is that BE 9.1 has successfully installed on the first node but fails on the second node where it appears to be partially installed. This was the consequence of moving the cluster to a different domain.

Could you look into this URGENTLY please as I haven't been able to backup for over a week and my company are starting to get very worried.

Thank you

[uz]

Gary, I understand that one of the nodes has a working BE 9.1 up and running !? - so until the problem is solved, please run the backups on this lokal BE instance. Yes, it is not failsave, but at least it will be a backup of all resources, incl. the clusterd resources.
(BE does not need to be clustered in order to be able to backup a cluster.)

Besides, I do not know what you have done with support, but as nothing else helped so far, try uninstalling manually.

Check in control panel, add remove progs, whether there is any VERITAS product or MS SQL MSD listed. If yes, try to uninstall (assuming you only had BE and no other MSD running)

Go to the cluster node causing this trouble. stop any BE services incl. MSsqlBKUPEXEC (if there are some)
Go to the registry and delete all entries for HKEY_LOKAL_MACHINE\software\veritas (assuming that there are no other VERITAS products running on this node)

Delete the registry entries for the SQL instance of BE
HKEY_Lokal_MACHINE\Software\microsoft\microsoft SQL server and MSSQLSERVER
(WARNING, insure you have no other SQL instance installed)

Delete all service entries for BE and BESQL found in the registry - if there still are some.

Delete all BE directories in the file system as well as program files\mssqlserver entries.
Delete all BE entries that you can still find on the shared disk, where BE was running prior to the problems.
Delete the disk resource ment for BE cluster in cluster admin.

Reboot the node.

move the shared disk to the node just rebooted and try a new lokal install to this node.
If it works, go on running the cluster config wizard, after regenerating the Diskresource in cluster admin.

How did it work. ?

If the MSDE SQL gives you some trouble uninstalling, read this:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;320873


Hope this helps, but no guarantee for sure ....

regards

uz

[Gary_Hurst]

uz

You are a star !!!! I've just finished going through your fix and it worked !!! It's now installed on both nodes and clustered.

Thank you very much for helping me with this. It's very much appreciated.

Gary