Cannot Expire/Reuse Media - Media not found in EMM DB

[Syed_Rizvi]

Hello all,

I know this is quite an old topic and there are several posts on the internet on how to fix this problem. I am still unable to resolve this and really appreciate your help. This is happening to me alot and now i have quite a few media that i cannot use.

Using Netbackup 6.5.5

Windows 2003 x32

Topic below explains how to fix this problem. I've followed it step by step but no joy

Lets say the i am unable to expire media as its currently now assigned to DB. If i run the following command

C:\Program Files\Veritas\NetBackup\bin\admincmd>nbemmcmd.exe -listmedia -mediaid ***** i get the info below

NBEMMCMD, Version:6.5.5

====================================================================

Media GUID:                     128fab56-3e2a-4452-b3e5-1fe00d9ae5c8

Media ID:                       *000**

Partner:                        -

Media Type:                     HCART

Volume Group:                   000_00000_TLD

Application:                    Netbackup

Media Flags:                    1

Description:                    ---

Barcode:                        *000**

Partner Barcode:                --------

Last Write Host:                NONE

Created:                        09/12/2010 17:41

Time Assigned:                  -

First Mount:                    -

Last Mount:                     -

Volume Expiration:              -

Data Expiration:                -

Last Written:                   -

Last Read:                      -

Robot Type:                     TLD

Robot Control Host:             lon-*******

Robot Number:                   0

Slot:                           4

Side/Face:                      -

Cleanings Remaining:            -

Number of Mounts:               0

Maximum Mounts Allowed:         0

Media Status:                   ACTIVE

Kilobytes:                      0

Images:                         0

Valid Images:                   0

Retention Period:               -

Number of Restores:             0

Optical Header Size Bytes:      0

Optical Sector Size Bytes:      0

Optical Partition Size Bytes:   0

Last Header Offset:             0

Adamm Guid:                     00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

Rsm Guid:                       00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

Origin Host:                    NONE

Master Host:                    lon-*********

Server Group:

Upgrade Conflicts Flag:

Pool Number:                    3

Volume Pool:                    CatalogBackup

Previous Pool Name:             -

Vault Flags:                    -

Vault Container:                -

Vault Name:                     -

Vault Slot:                     -

Session ID:                     -

Date Vaulted:                   -

Return Date:                    -

====================================================================

Command completed successfully.

Because i cannot see the media host i run the next command which is

C:\Program Files\Veritas\NetBackup\bin\admincmd>bptm -makedbentry -m *000** -den

 hcart -poolnum 1. This add the entry on the media server and i can see by running the listmedia command the Last Write Host has appeared

C:\Program Files\Veritas\NetBackup\bin\admincmd>nbemmcmd.exe -listmedia -mediaid
 *000**
NBEMMCMD, Version:6.5.5
====================================================================
Media GUID:                     128fab56-3e2a-4452-b3e5-1fe00d9ae5c8
Media ID:                       *000**
Partner:                        -
Media Type:                     HCART
Volume Group:                   000_00000_TLD
Application:                    Netbackup
Media Flags:                    1
Description:                    ---
Barcode:                        *000**
Partner Barcode:                --------
Last Write Host:                lon-****
Created:                        09/12/2010 17:41
Time Assigned:                  09/12/2010 21:38
First Mount:                    -
Last Mount:                     -
Volume Expiration:              -
Data Expiration:                INFINITY
Last Written:                   -
Last Read:                      -
Robot Type:                     TLD
Robot Control Host:             lon-*******
Robot Number:                   0
Slot:                           4
Side/Face:                      -
Cleanings Remaining:            -
Number of Mounts:               0
Maximum Mounts Allowed:         0
Media Status:                   FROZEN
Kilobytes:                      0
Images:                         999
Valid Images:                   0
Retention Period:               0
Number of Restores:             0
Optical Header Size Bytes:      1024
Optical Sector Size Bytes:      0
Optical Partition Size Bytes:   0
Last Header Offset:             0
Adamm Guid:                     00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
Rsm Guid:                       00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
Origin Host:                    NONE
Master Host:                    lon-*******
Server Group:                   NO_SHARING_GROUP
Upgrade Conflicts Flag:
Pool Number:                    3
Volume Pool:                    CatalogBackup
Previous Pool Name:             -
Vault Flags:                    -
Vault Container:                -
Vault Name:                     -
Vault Slot:                     -
Session ID:                     -
Date Vaulted:                   -
Return Date:                    -
====================================================================
Command completed successfully.

Ok so now all seems good, but since the tape is frozen i cannot use it. When i do the last step (expiring the media) bpexpdate -m *000** -d 0 i am able to expire media sucessfully. But i am still not able to use the tape and if i run the listmedia command, the Last Write Host is now gone

Please help

[Marianne]

So you started with a brand new tape *000** that you added to the CatalogBackup pool. Not seeing a media host is normal, since the media is not yet assigned (not written to).

1st time a tape is used for a backup all those fields will be populated automatically.

What makes you say you cannot use the tape? What happens when you run a Hot Catalog policy (since your tape is in CatalogBackup pool)?

[Andy_Welburn]

What happens when you try to unfreeze it?

bpmedia -unfreeze -m <media_id>

[Marianne · Accepted solution]

It's the 'bptm -makedbentry' that adds the Infinity retention and Frozen status.

It should never be necessary to manually do a 'makedbentry'.

The only use for this command is to forge mediaDB entries that were 'lost' in version 5.1 :

http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/280202.htm

http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/280181.htm

[J_H_Is_gone]

Are you trying to reuse this tape in a normal (non-catalog) policy?

If so, you need to do something special to make a catalog tape reusable by a different policy.

How to reuse or recycle unnecessary VERITAS NetBackup database catalog tapes for normal backups

http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/237779.htm

[Syed_Rizvi]

Sorry guys i have been away from the office for two weeks now and on my return Yet again the weekly backups did not finish because 1 of the tapes in the magazine (sitting in the Scratch pool) did not get picked up by the robot to be written.

To answer your questions above

Marriane : No these are not brandnew tapes, they are my weekly/daily backup tapes which have a retention of whatever i have defined and when i insert them back into the magazine they come up as expired tapes.

J.Hinchcliffe: Yes i am trying to use them as normal netbackup tape.

Again what happens is let say its Thursday and i have a taped labelled as A00004 and another tape A00003. When i insert both of these tapes, after doing an inventory i can see both in the scratch pool so i leave the office just to find out next day that the tape A00004 was not written. I get the Status 96 on console and looking at detail error log  No media is available    
unable to allocate new media for backup, storage unit has none available(96)

What i dont understand is if the Tape is sitting on Scratch pool surely Netback should treat it as a scratch tape and pick it up to write data to it.

Now the tricky part, if i manually expire the tape (eventhough it's already expired) the above happens .

Command prompts says media is due to expire at 01/01/1970 bla bla. are you sure (Y/N)

if i press yes i get "Requested media id was not found in the EMM database"

and thats when i follow the steps i have mention on top but still cannot re-use the tape

[Marianne]

Please post output of 'nbemmcmd -listmedia -mediaid A00004' as well as output of

'vmpool -listscratch'.