Error 96 - no available media

[CadenL]

Hi

So error 96 isn't un common and should be an easy fix. But I have a question as to if I should be getting this error in my particular scenario.

I have a single media server with locally attached tape library. The library has just 1 drive and 1 piece of tape media. I start a backup job to tape and it selects the tape and starts writing all ok. A second job then kicks in and I get an error 96.

What I hope would happen (and I'm sure I've seen in the past) is for the job to queue saying the limit has been reached for the device (or something like that) instead of failing totally with a 96 error.

Does NBU always look for availble media first before checking if the tape device is available?

I know that I can put a second tape in and that may well fix it but sometimes only a single tape will be available......

thanks

[Thiago_Ribeiro]

How are your storage unit settings?

[Tousif · Accepted solution]

Hello,

If media is active state and robot type is TLD etc in nbemm database then job will go in queue state even its in use by other job and wait till it meet the backup window.

If media is in freeze state or TLD none and there is no other media in active and available then it through the error 96 straightaway.

The EMM database have algorithm to provide the resources. It always try to provide the media used last time to take client backup. If that media is not available and you have selected "allow multiple retention per media" in Master server host properties then nbemm will check other available media in database.

Thanks & Regards, 

[CadenL]

Many thanks for the replies - I ended up just putting another tape in to see what grabbed it. Turns out there was some outstanding duplicate jobs in the SLP that was still referencing a volume pool that I thought was no longer used and so didn't have any availabel media for it.

So spot on in saying that the media is always checked before the device availability and so will error and fail before it NBU says the device is in use.

thanks

[Marianne]

I honestly do not see the point of having a tape library with only one piece of media in it....

The moment you have more than one pool being used and more than one retention level, you need tapes for each of those.

Always good to ensure sufficient tapes in the robot and to have a Scratch pool.