20488 - Failed to write a placeholder file

[ianG]

Hi folks,

Am getting alot of these errors logged on our file clusters, by the fileplaceholder service. The file servers are windows 2008 R2, and I have full control permissions (I've seen the following technote - http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH129852 )

The files not being 'placeholdered', are of all different types, but with one thing in common - they're all read only. Has anyone experienced issues like this before, and have a solution? The file servers have been upgraded from windows 2003, and I'd not seen the issue there.

The environment, and placeholder version is 8.0.4

[ianG]

Copy and paste of one of the error messages:

Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    Enterprise Vault
Event Category:    File Placeholder Service
Event ID:    20488
Date:        09/04/2012
Time:        22:37:39
User:        N/A
Computer:    evserver01
Description:
Failed to write a placeholder file
File Name: J:\Networks_data_archive\images\relay_2.gif

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://evevent.symantec.com/rosetta/showevent.asp
Data:
0000: 54 68 65 20 70 61 72 61   The para
0008: 6d 65 74 65 72 20 69 73   meter is
0010: 20 69 6e 63 6f 72 72 65    incorre
0018: 63 74 2e 20 20 5b 30 78   ct.  [0x
0020: 38 30 30 37 30 30 35 37   80070057
0028: 5d                        ]       
 

[Tremaine]

Have a look at article http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH177246 . There is currently no fix for this issue on V8.x.

You may be able to work around this if you run an attrib -R /S on your filesystem.

[Tremaine]

Actually for clearing of the attribute refer to the linked article - http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH168167

[Percy_Vere]

Have you got pass-through recall enabled? Have a look at these two technotes:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH168167

http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO57138

[ianG]

Thanks for the replies guys

Im not actually getting the 'Value does not fall within the expected range' error, but you reckon Im suffering the issue as addressed by the hotfix?

Removing the readonly flag from everything isnt possible in our environment Im afraid.. so currently my only option is an upgrade to 9.0.3 + apply hotfix on all the fileservers?

[Tremaine]

The probability is very good that you are suffering one and the same issue with the 'Read-Only' attribute being set. Keep in mind that the error reported between V8 and V9+ may well be different due to changes in code between versions and or circumstances.

[MarkBarefoot]

This error is found on the EV server, within the DTRACE of the EvFsaArchivingTask process. When troubleshooting FSA you have the 2 halves; the EVServer running the Archving Task, and the File Server running the Placeholder service.

It's always worth getting info from both servers (event logs, DTRACE) so you can then see matching actions using times etc.

It's probably worth running a DTRACE on the EV Server using the process stated above - that way you can see if this truly matches and this may help in your move to 9.0.3 +HF.

[ianG]

ok, thanks guys.

I'd suspected the same about the error message yea :(

No plans to do a hotfix for EV8? An upgrade for our environment to 9.x is good ways away for us - towards the end of the year..

I'll look into setting up some dtrace triggers to try and catch one of these failures.

Might be worthwhite updating the compatibility guide, or writing a technote about this issue - Im surprised that theres not more people experiencing it

[MarkBarefoot]

From an EV8 perspective there will be no further dev work done on this, as this is now 2 major versions behind. EV9 brings a number of new features and fixes along with it so it would be prudent to get to this as soon as you can really.

[ianG]

Disappointing to hear, but understandable

thanks guys

[ianG]

Actually, and apologies for bumping this topic even though I marked it solved...

I see in the compatibility matrix, that the FSA placeholder is backwards compatible with backend version 8... is this the case? (page 70 - www.symantec.com/docs/TECH38537)

Is it possible, in the shortterm to upgrade the placeholder binaries to v9 + hotfix, and then (within a couple of months), bring the backend up to 9 also?

[TonySterling]

You can give it a go but if there is something required server side it won't fix it.

Worth a shot IMHO.

[ianG]

reckon so too, thanks Tony

from the events being thrown on the file server itself, and the hotfix being for the placeholder service filter, it all certainly looks to the 'target side' of the operation thats faulting, not server side..

..but I'll try it out on our test environment and see how I get on

[ianG]

Been slightly scuppered by not being able to replicate this issue in our test environment. Read-Only files are being happily archived there..

I have a standalone virtual file server that I can try it out on next though, without too much trouble (alot of our file servers are clustered)