cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Netbackup 7.0.1 not returning expired media to scratch pool

gnussbaum
Level 3

Hello,

I have read the previous posting here but it has not helped me.  I have CHECK_EXPIRED_MEDIA_INTERVAL set to 12 and RETURN_UNASSIGNED_MEDIA_TO_SCRATCH_POOL set to 'yes'.  I have even looked at

http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/358346.htm

but this hasn't helped me either.

Does anyone have any suggestions.  The expired tapes show up when I run 'bpexpdate -deassignempty' but, like I said, the aren't being automatically moved like they did before my upgrade from 6.0 MP4 to 7.0.1.

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Andy_Welburn
Level 6

As you say they "appear" if you manually run bpexpdate -deassignempty but not automatically during 'cleanup' then maybe this T/N is relevant?

The bpexpdate -deassignempty command is not being run automatically by the scheduler, and empty tapes, which hold no valid images, are not being made available for backups
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH135182

View solution in original post

19 REPLIES 19

RiaanBadenhorst
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

Try and recreate your scratch pool.

gnussbaum
Level 3

Hi Riaan,

Thanks for the suggestion, but still no luck.  My image cleanups run every 12 hours, but the expired tapes never move to scratch.  I've even tried to rename my pempersist2 file to no avail.  I also didn't have a 'last_time_expired_media' file, so I tried to 'trick' the system by created on using the last image cleanup ctime and that didn't help either.

Any other suggestions?  I've checked the scratch pool settings and they are all pointing to the right pool.  I opened a case but the engineer seems stumped as well.

Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

Try to hard-code Scratch Pool in vm.conf:

(install_path\Volmgr\vm.conf)

SCRATCH_POOL = pool_name

Zahid_Haseeb
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

May be something you were missing.

1.) Try to inventory your robot.

2.) As you have said "" I have CHECK_EXPIRED_MEDIA_INTERVAL set to 12 and RETURN_UNASSIGNED_MEDIA_TO_SCRATCH_POOL set to 'yes'. ""

Check any spell mistake here.

3.) Are you able to move the Tapes to Scratch manually ?

SvenKessler
Level 4

Hello,

we have the same problem. Can you please try to right click the expired tape and click "unfreeze"? After we do this the tapes are moving immediately to scratch. Doesn't matter, if the tape was really freezed or not.

Best regards

 

Sven

Andy_Welburn
Level 6

As you say they "appear" if you manually run bpexpdate -deassignempty but not automatically during 'cleanup' then maybe this T/N is relevant?

The bpexpdate -deassignempty command is not being run automatically by the scheduler, and empty tapes, which hold no valid images, are not being made available for backups
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH135182

Zahid_Haseeb
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

Are you trying to manually delete some tape images and expected the tape move automatically to the scratch pool ?

gnussbaum
Level 3

Hi Zahid,

I was moving them manually because they weren't automatically being moved by the bpexpdate command.

gnussbaum
Level 3

Hi Andy,

 

You may be on to something here!  I had that file on my server.  I'll wait now to see if tapes get moved to scratch and update the thread.

 

Fingers crossed.

 

George

Andy_Welburn
Level 6

Did you notice  "... "Skipping bpexpdate -deassignempty until next successful db backup" in the nbpem log file (oid=116) ..."

gnussbaum
Level 3

I did.  I just checked that. :)

Zahid_Haseeb
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

I dont think that you can move the tape via bpexpdate command.

Moving tapes to the scratch pool

(Associate this volume with a different pool)
  vmchange.exe [-h <EMM_server> | <volume_database_host>]
           -p <pool_number> -m <media_id>

 

bpexpdate command description

The bpexpdate command allows the expiration date and time of backups to be changed in the NetBackup image catalog. It is also used to change the expiration of removable media in the NetBackup media catalog. If the date is set to zero, bpexpdate immediately expires backups from the image catalog or media from the media catalog. When a media ID is removed from the NetBackup media catalog, it is also deassigned in the Media Manager volume database, regardless of the media's prior state (FROZEN, SUSPENDED, and so on).

Andy_Welburn
Level 6

The command that George is looking at is bpexpdate -deassignempty which does exactly as it says i.e it unassigns empty tapes (no images). As the value of his RETURN_UNASSIGNED_MEDIA_TO_SCRATCH_POOL is 'yes' these unassigned media then do get returned to the scratch pool.

This is an automatic procedure scheduled to run every 12 hours but for some reason (which we hope is now resolved!) this automatic procedure is not working. When George runs the command manually it works.

@George Instead of waiting 12 hours you could temporarily change the interval per http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH63221

***EDIT***

There's also the following (for 6.0 - 6.5.4) which has a couple more files you may like to check (altho', "fingers crossed", you've already found the culprit!):
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH125287

gnussbaum
Level 3

I tried your second link beofre and it didn't help.  Just waiting for tapes to expire to see if it;'s fixed, but that won't be until next week.

gnussbaum
Level 3

Hi Marianne,

 

I already have that in the file and it didn't change things.

Andy_Welburn
Level 6

You got some days off?

gnussbaum
Level 3

I wish...what I meant is that the next time any of my tapes are set to expire are on the 9th of November.

Zahid_Haseeb
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

(Just for checking. if possible) Is that not possible that you take backup of some data on an individual tape with a retention level one day. and see what happen after one day.

gnussbaum
Level 3

Well...I have good news and bad news.  The good news is removing the 'deassign_lock' file fixed my issue and expired tapes! :)  The BAD news is that I have 35 tapes that expired that should not have as some were not set to expire for months amd/or years from now.  This is another issue I was having when I upgraded from 6.0 MP4 to 7.0.1.  The weird thing is I actually recalled most of these a week ago and ran a Phase I import and that recreated the contents for the database and they were seen again, but it seems after the Phase I import the expiration dates were reset.  I was told by another engineer that all I need was the Phase I to get them imported back into the database.  I ran a Media Contents and it saw everything after the Phase I.  I had originally tried a Phase II on some of these but was getting an error about the TIR file.  That's when the engineer said all that I needed was a Phase I.