NetBackup v7.1.0.1 & SQL 2008 R2 - Cannot restore via GUI

[asg2ki]

HI All,

I'm unable to browse previously taken backup images for some of my SQL 2008 R2 database instances via the NetBackup SQL Client.

After observing the "dbclient" logs I noticed the following message:

"This image is skipped because it contains metadata not recognized by the current version of NetBackup for SQL Server being skipped"

I have another SQL 2008 R2 Express deployment which works absolutely fine with NetBackup including the restores, so probably there is something around my other SQL instances. Any help would be appreciated.

My NBU version is 7.1.0.1 for both the server and client components.

Cheers

[Sebastian_Baszc]

Please make sure you have specified exactly the same client name in the Restore GUI you have in NetBackup policy. If you use FQDN in the policy - you need to specify exactly the same in the Restore GUI.

[asg2ki]

Thanks for the suggestion but I am already browsing with the exact client name (FQDN by the way).

Any other suggestions are warmly welcomed.

[Marianne]

Are you saying that backups were not successful? What was the backup status code?

[Will_Restore]

similar trouble in v6.5

Cause

Netbackup 6.5.4 Master Server skipps images because it contains metadata which is not recognized by the current version of NetBackup 6.5 for MS-SQL 2005 Server.

Solution

After applying the NBU 6.5.4 patch , the images were listing properly under the Netbackup SQL Agent.

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH128415

[asg2ki]

The backups were fully successful. The problem is that the MSSQL NBU Client cannot browse them back for some reason, so this is nothing related to a backup failure.

[asg2ki]

Exactly the same thing but for version 7.1 instead of 6.5.

The only problem is that there is no patch available at this time.

[Mark_Solutions]

Is you client at 7.1.0.1 the same as your Master?

If not then upgrade it.

Or maybe try 7.1.0.2 all round

The 6.5 / 6.5.4 tech note indicates a mismatch between Master and Client rather than a patch fixing it

[Marianne]

We have several customers on 7.1.0.1 and none of them have experienced this problem.

Let's eliminate GUI as a start - please see if bplist works.

Open cmd on client  (remember to Run as Administrator)  and try to browse using bplist:

install_path\NetBackup\bin\bplist -C <client-name> -t 15 -S <master-server> -R \

Try this on the master as well.

For further troubleshooting, ensure that you have bpdbm and bprd log folders on the master (restart NBU after creating folders).

[asg2ki]

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll certainly try that and will let you know about the results.

My apologies about the delayed responses, I got swamped with many things recently.

[asg2ki]

Perhaps 7.1.0.2 may contain a fix so I'll certainly give it a try.

As for the version differences you mention, this is definitely not the case as I tried to browse the backup images directly from the Master server and the results were the same. For the moment I'm pretty sure its just something that the GUI cannot process but I'll give it a try with bplist as this was suggested by another person in this thread.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[asg2ki]

Hi Marianne,

So I gave it a try with CLI commands as you suggested and I confirm that I'm able to list out the images from the catalog at least on a base level, however the SQL client GUI is still unable to get me an output and therefore it makes my restore options really difficult right now as I need to create the scripts manually by hand.

On a second note I also made an upgrade to v7.1.0.2 on both the server and the client side however that didn't result with any changes. I'm still receiving the following message for all backup images taken specifically from the SQL server in question:

"This image is skipped because it contains metadata not recognized by the current version of NetBackup for SQL Server being skipped:"

By the way the fact that problem is only with a specific SQL server instead of generic issue between the NBU clients and SQL server 2008 instance makes me almost certain that the problem is related somewhere around the SQL deployment and the way how it interacts with NBU but I'm not sure where to look for clues. By the way the backup jobs are running just fine and exiting with status code 0.

One thing I noticed is that when I browse the backup images via CLI and I used shortname for the SQL client, this didn't provide me with any output, however when using FQDN the images got listed immediately. I assume that this is due to the fact that I use FQDN's in all my policy names. The interesting thing is that I use shortnames within my SQL backup scripts and for a moment I wondered whether or not that might be causing the problem, but after testing a backup with FQDN everywhere and then trying to browse the backup images the results were the same. I'm able to see them via CLI where the GUI is just giving me headaches.

The second interesting part here is that when I use the SQL server's FQDN in the "Set SQL Server Connection Properties" connection prior to chosing the restore function, when I try to browse the images the SQL server is indicated with a red down arrow like as if it can't communicate with it. If I do the same operation by using shortname for the SQL connection, then I see the server in normal status in the restore function (without backup images), so basically the shortname / FQDN concept is like almost the opposite of what I see with CLI commands. Not sure what exactly the GUI command is trying to engage in the background for the command listing but I guess this might be related to the issue one way or another.

Anyway looking forward your further suggestions.

Thanks & Regards,

[asg2ki]

Finally a partial solution...

After numerous blind tries I finally figured out how to make my images visible through the SQL GUI client however I'm still not sure about the nature of this bug around NBU and SQL Server 2008. What I did was to take a backup of my databases with VSS Snapshot enabled through the NBU policies. After making a successful backup my images started appearing via the SQL GUI client and I was able to generate restore scripts at least for the VSS based backup images.

Unfortunately the streaming backups are being discarded by the SQL GUI with exactly the same message so this is definitely some sort of a bug with those backups. Currently I'm unable to browse differential and transaction log backups as they are not supported under VSS method.

I've been testing SQL backups via NBU 7.1 against SQL 2008 R2 Enterprise and Developer editions as well as non R2 version of SQL 2008 Enterprise, so if anyone could post additional results with other SQL 2008 (including non-R2) and perhaps 2005 versions please feel free to do so.

For the moment it seems that the only version of SQL that doesn't five me headaches is SQL 2008 Express Edition (v10.50.2500) which was deployed by a third party application, so it's either me doing something wrong with my full SQL deployments or its really a bug in the NBU SQL Client.

Thanks & Regards,

[asg2ki]

One more thing.

The latest tests were made with NBU v7.1.0.3 for both the NBU Server and the NBU Client.

[Mark_Solutions]

A few comments in the 7.1.0.3 release notes about SQL servers that do not have a Default Instance installed but can not see anything that relates to having to use snapshots

Just in case something strange has crept in log into the SQL Server (as the user specified when you did the SQL connection properties initially - hopefully you do this anyway when opening the GUI) and take a look at:

HKCU\Software\Veritas\NetBackup\NetBackup for Microsft SQL Server\

to see if anything looks wrong with the keys in there.

[asg2ki]

Already done that...

Unfortunately my problem is not related to the visibility of teh SQL instances. I have all my settings set properly and operational. This issue still requires deep investigation.

Further suggestions are welcomed.

[asg2ki · Accepted solution]

Finally a solution...

After endless logs investigation and experiments I finally managed to get closer and find a solution. It seems that this problem is nothing related to the type and version of the SQL instances I'm using but it is related to the naming of the policies I use in NetBackup for protecting the various SQL datasets. I was very surprised when after installing several SQL 2005 and 2008 (Ent, Dev and even Express) test instances I got the very same crappy results, so this made me suspicous over the NBU master instance and I head back to the dbclient logs which didn't tell me anything useful but just the very same message about the metadata.

Anyway what I tried in the meantime was to use one of my existing NBU SQL policies that work properly and change only the client hostname and respectively the backup selection from another policy that didn't want to work at all. After the backup job was done, I browsed the SQL GUI for images that can be restored and finally I got them listed. I made some incremental and transaction log backups and those are now also appearing properly.

What I still don't know is why this issue is happening only on specific policies but I'm pretty confident that  it's not because of the amount or the type of characters I'm using in my policies. All of my policies are following a unified naming convention framework but somehow specific SQL policies are still being affected and I haven't got a clue yet about the root cause.

The original policy that always worked for me had the very same character set and also more characters in it's name as compared to the policies that doesn't work. So this definitely seems to be a NetBackup bug that shall be adressed by the Symantec engineers.

Kindly ask you to let me know if you may have experienced similar situations.

Happy Holidays

[fdiaz]

I'm having similar issue not been able to browse for restores using the NBU DB Extension GUI but I am able to see them in the catalog. The only difference is that I'm taking a backup of a database from a MSSQL2005 9.0.5000 and I'm also not seen the error message:

"This image is skipped because it contains metadata not recognized by the current version of NetBackup for SQL Server being skipped"

I create a new policy with a new batch file and now I'm able to see the backup in the GUI just not the previously completed.

Did you create a Symantec case for this issue?

Have you managed to browse for the old backups from the original policy?