not completing backup every other day?

[nemoah]

Hi

Just a heads up, I'm not too experienced with backup exec.

My company has Veritas Backup Exec, 8.6 I believe but I could be wrong. It backups to tape media everyday at around 11 pm, does an append and overwrite if no media available, verifies, and ejects the tape. Now, it seems to only have a successful backup every other day. The times when it doesn't backup successfully, the job had to be manually cancelled. Since we use one specific tape for a specific day, I had thought it might have been something to do with that, but the failed backups weren't day specific- mondays would work one week and fail the next, etc.

The backups do not fail, they just keep going for far longer than it should. It usually takes one hour. When it fails, it seems to do so at random times, as the number of files processed have differed every time.

I am going to summarize the logs of two runs, since I only have a hard copy, the first is successful and the second unsuccessful. I have a feeling this is a very simple problem...yet I can't seem to figure it out.

bex42.txt-------------------------------
Job Server: Server1
Job Name: Backup 0049
Job Started: Tuesday, August 29, 11:00 PM
Job Type: Backup
Job Log: bex42.txt
===================

Drive and media info from media mount:
Robotic library name:
drive name: HP 1
Slot: 0
Media GUID: {c8E802B8-7B97-431E-AA8B-3AA7DCE7D318}
Media label: 4MM000002
Overwrite protection time left: none
append time left: infinite
targeted media set name: media set 1

======
job operation - backup
media operation - append
hardware compression enabled.
======

media name: "media created 8/4/2006"
backup of d:\data
backup set #11 on storage media #3
backup set description: backup 0049
backup type: full - backup files - reset archive bit
backup started on 8/29/2006 at 11 pm

backup completed on 8/30/2006 at 12 pm
backed up 49052 files in 5518 directories
processed 2,000,000,000 bytes in 1 hour
throughput rate: 39.9 MB/min
---------------------

media name: media created on 8/4/2006
backup of \\server1\system?state
backup set #12 on storage media #3
Backup type: FULL - backup files - reset archive bit
backup started on 8/30/2006 at 12am

backup completed on 8/30/2006 at 12:16 am
backed up 2175 files in 97 directories
processed 300,000,000 bytes in 6 min 10 sec
throughput rate: 50.3 MB/min

Then it proceeds to verify



THIS IS the unsuccessful log
********************************************
bex43.txt-----------J
ob Server: Server1
Job Name: Backup 0049
Job Started: wed, August 30, 11:00 PM
Job Type: Backup
Job Log: bex43.txt
===================

Drive and media info from media mount:
Robotic library name:
drive name: HP 1
Slot: 0
Media GUID: {783A3f7C-1DA5-46*D-*DBA-092B1EF6B84B}
Media label: 4MM000005
Overwrite protection time left: none
append time left: infinite
targeted media set name: media set 1

======
job operation - backup
media operation - append
hardware compression enabled.
======

media name: "media created 8/1/2006"
backup of d:\data
backup set #10 on storage media #2
backup set description: backup 0049
backup type: full - backup files - reset archive bit
backup started on 8/30/2006 at 11 pm

Drive and media information from media mount:
Robotic Library name:
Drive name HP1
Slot: 0
Media GUID {9377695B-29B9-4472-B56B-620CB74F03C3}
media label: 4mm000003
overwrite protection time left: none
append time left: infinite
targeted media set name: media set 1
backup set #10 on storage media #3
The media operation was terminated by the user.
^^^^^

Backup completed on 8/31/2006 at 9:27 AM (which is when it was cancelled)
Backed up 10849 files in 600 directories
processed 1,045,026,300 in 26 mins, 6 secs
throughput rate: 38.2/min
--------

=======
job ended: thurs, aug 31 at 9:27 am
job completion status: canceled by server1\administrator

************************

I dont understand it since its the same backup job.

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated

Thank you
nemoah

[Keith_Langmead]

The main thing I notice from this is that on your unsuccessful backup, the job starts using tape 4MM000005 and then goes on to using tape 4MM000003, as if the tape was changed at some point between the backup being started and you cancelling it. Could it be that if the tape ejected during the backup that someone could have put another one in or something like that?

From your comments I take it you typed out the log information rather than copy and paste it. Could you confirm a couple of details. 1) the second tape ...003 isn't just a typo, 2) that the unsuccessful job never reaches the verify stage of the backup.

I suspect the tape number change could be the key to this, but without it getting as far as the verify I'm not sure what could be causing it.

[nemoah]

hi Keith thanks for the reply

yes i did type it, i only had a paper copy of the log. i'll be able to get a full copy later on tonight.
It is not a typo, and I am certain that no one changed the tape. Usually after every backup the tape is ejected, but in this case the tape is still in the drive in the morning.

I found it interesting when I checked the job and saw that the "eject tape" option was not checked. However, that same job has been used for over a year with no problems, and usually after every backup it is ejected. I checked the box.

What do you suggest I do? I will be able to post a complete log later tonight, and I think there is an option to make it mroe detailed?

Thank you in advance
nemoah

[Keith_Langmead]

Yes if you post the complete log that might give some other ideas. The default logging level should be fine, more than that and it just adds details of exactly which files & folders were backuped up which we shouldn't need to know.

Keith