NBU 7.0.1 vStorage individual files restores not working for just some guests!

[elanmbx]

I've got a number of guests which I am NOT having luck being able to restore individual files from.  These guests *seem* to backup fine (not getting errors), but I'm unable to do file-level restores with them.  I am doing "Mapped full VM backup" - in fact, I'm not even able to browse for individual files on these guests.  The odd thing is that they don't seem to be similar in any way - except the original group was all VMX-4.

Strange, though - because not all the VMX-4 guests have an issue.  So I speculated it might be VMware Tools.  So I had our VM admin upgrade one of the hosts upgrade the Tools to current.  Tried a full backup - backup ran fine.  Tried restore from newly created full image - "no files matching" when I try to browse.

So I speculated it might be the VMX version.  Had the admin shutdown the guest, upgrade the VMX version, and re-added the host into the policy.  With VMX-7 version I enabled BLIB for the guest.  Ran a full backup. Backup went fine.  Tried restore - "no files matching" when I try to browse.

I'm trying a "Normal" restore type.  I *am* able to browse the fulls if I select "Virtual Machine Backups" in the Restore type: field.

Another data point that has to be related (and led me to all these guests having this problem) - all my incremental backups for these guests showed in the "Activity Monitor" as backing up only 19-25 Kilobytes of data each evening.

Has anyone else run into this issue?  My guests that are having this issue seem to be fairly consistent (WinNT, 2003-32bit).  Is there something regarding these OS's that are causing me trouble?  Some of my 2003-32bit guests DON'T seem to have this issue.

Driving me crazy at this point!  Thanks for any help.

[elanmbx]

Policy info if it's of use:

 Policy Name:       Denv02p-01_VMX04

Options:           0x0

template:          FALSE

c_unused1:         ?

Names:             (none)

Policy Type:       FlashBackup-Windows (29)

Active:            yes

Effective date:    12/07/2002 14:39:33

File Restore Raw:  yes

Mult. Data Stream: no

Perform Snapshot Backup:   yes

Snapshot Method:           VMware

Snapshot Method Arguments: trantype=0,snapact=2,nameuse=1,Virtual_machine_backup=2,vmmono=0,file_system_optimization=1,disable_quiesce=0

Perform Offhost Backup:    yes

Backup Copy:               0

Use Data Mover:            no

Data Mover Type:           -1

Use Alternate Client:      no

Alternate Client Name:     deninfrap8b.jeppesen.com

Use Virtual Machine:      1

Hyper-V Server Name:

Enable Instant Recovery:   no

Policy Priority:   1

Max Jobs/Policy:   3

Disaster Recovery: 0

Collect BMR Info:  no

Keyword:           Intel VMware - Production

Data Classification:       -

Residence is Storage Lifecycle Policy:    no

Client Encrypt:    no

Checkpoint:        no

Residence:         DENINFRAP8_DL4206

Volume Pool:       NetBackup

Server Group:      *ANY*

Granular Restore Info:  no

Exchange Source attributes:              no

Exchange 2010 Preferred Server: (none defined)

Generation:      31

Ignore Client Direct:  no

Client/HW/OS/Pri:  WINDOM vmx-04 winNetEnterpriseGuest 0 0 0 0 ?

Client/HW/OS/Pri:  BoeCatDev2 vmx-04 winNetEnterpriseGuest 0 0 0 0 ?

Client/HW/OS/Pri:  Boecatdev1 vmx-04 winNetEnterpriseGuest 0 0 0 0 ?

Client/HW/OS/Pri:  CatINT1 vmx-04 winNetEnterpriseGuest 0 0 0 0 ?

Client/HW/OS/Pri:  Hoosier vmx-04 winNetEnterpriseGuest 0 0 0 0 ?

Client/HW/OS/Pri:  Romeo vmx-04 winNetEnterpriseGuest 0 0 0 0 ?

Client/HW/OS/Pri:  FRADC01 vmx-04 winNetStandardGuest 0 0 0 0 ?

Client/HW/OS/Pri:  Bierstadt vmx-04 winNetEnterpriseGuest 0 0 0 0 ?

Client/HW/OS/Pri:  CYCLOPS vmx-04 winNetEnterpriseGuest 0 0 0 0 ?

Client/HW/OS/Pri:  DENPAPPJIRA02 vmx-04 winNetStandard64Guest 0 0 0 0 ?

Client/HW/OS/Pri:  DevSLA vmx-04 winNetEnterpriseGuest 0 0 0 0 ?

Client/HW/OS/Pri:  India vmx-04 winNetEnterpriseGuest 0 0 0 0 ?

Client/HW/OS/Pri:  ENTDENDC2 vmx-04 winNetEnterpriseGuest 0 0 0 0 ?

Include:           ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES

[thesanman]

For specific file restore when you look to do the restore make sure you select a restore type of "Normal Backup" and then the policy type is "FlashBackup-Windows".

By doing this I also find you need the client installed on the VM as well or restore the file to another Windows server and copy it across..

[elanmbx]

I think most of the guests that are exhibiting this behavior are not supported under the "FlashBackup-Windows" policy type.  Will have to confirm, but that's what it's currently looking like...