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Facing issue while taking backup in some tape drive

Rajesh_s1
Level 6
Certified

HI All,

NBU master server : 7.1.0.1

NBU Media server  : 7.1.0.2

OS :   Windows 2008-R2

 

I have strucked up with one of the issue in one of the media server. In this perticular media server backups are running only in some drives are in some other drive it will be in writing state for hours together and will not write anything on the tape drive. But on the same tape drive other media servers backups are running fine ( its an SSO environment).

I have upgraded the windows tape drive drivers to the latest and done lot of troubleshooting but couldnt able to find the cause for this. Deleted all the drives from the media server and reconfigured .

Regards,

Rajesh

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Rajesh_s1
Level 6
Certified

We have replaced the FC cable which is connected from server to FC swich and also we have replaced the SFP on the FC switch. After that backups started working fine on all the drives.

Hope this may help anyone.

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5 REPLIES 5

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

You have made some good steps to investigate the issue.

I think we need to see the bptm log - I suspect we will see "Begin writing" and then nothing for the PID for the backup.

NetBackup does not actually write anything to the tape drives, it is ALL done by the operating system.

I would do the following;

Create a basic disk storage unit on the media server and run a small backup - does this write.  If so, I think this shows that bptm is working fine.  Next, using the same policy, change the STU to the tape drive (stu) and see if it writes (it will probablt fail as you explained).

At this point, all we have done is prove that bptm works (hopefully).  

Sometimes wee see odd issues like this.  Recreating the drives sometimes works.  Did you delete the drives from the media server operating system as well ?  If not, do this

Delete the drives again from NBU (sorry)

Delete the drives from the os.

Reboot the media serever (very important)

Install the same device drive as another working media server (just so we know we are not introducing a problem driver to the environment)

Make sure the HBA driver/ firmware is also the same as another working media server

If no changes have been made (before the issue started) we have now reconfigured everything.

If at this point it does not work ...  the chances are the issue is outside NBU (remember, NetBackup does not write to the drives, the os does).

The only other thing I think you could try at this point would be to reinstall NBU on the media server, but I would be very surprised if this resolves the issue.  (It is possible (nothing ever surprises me) but considering how things work, this would not be the most likely cause of the issue),

Martin

Rajesh_s1
Level 6
Certified

Thanks Martin , all most all the steps has been tried and couldnt see the results.

1. Windows tape drives has been upgraded.

2. HBA drives has been upgraded and even changed the HBA card.

3. Deleted all the drives and reconfigured.

4. Many time server has been rebooted.

5. Even from the day when the issue started disk backups are runing fine. i.e. we are using this media server as staging server ( clients backups will happen to disk and then move to tape)

Backups will be written on two three drives but if it goes on the other drives it will not write anything even if we leave for a day and will not through any error too. But on the same drives other media server backups are running fine.

 

 

Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

As per Martin's excellent post - you need logs to troubleshoot:
bptm log as well as Event Viewer System and Application logs.

To increase logging level between NBU Media Manager and OS event logs, add VERBOSE entry to media server's vm.conf, then restart NBU Device Management service.

 

 

 

V4
Level 6
Partner Accredited

hi rajesh

 

How drives were deleted from NBU?

From GUI???

Try with netbackup/bin/admincmd/nbemmcmd -deleteall devices -machinename affected media server  -machinetype media

I'd similar cases where deleting devices from NBU GUI did not helped. After releasing allocations and removing them from CLI helped

 

Try checking for inconsistent allocations on drives using nbrbutil --reportInconsistentAllocations

if possible reset media server prior to removal

use nbrbutil -resetMediaServer mediaserver switch

If it's only single media server you may Resets all nbrb allocations, requests, and persisted states.

nbrbutil -resetAll

 

Let us know if it helps
 

 

Rajesh_s1
Level 6
Certified

We have replaced the FC cable which is connected from server to FC swich and also we have replaced the SFP on the FC switch. After that backups started working fine on all the drives.

Hope this may help anyone.