Tapes being mounted but not used

[welchda]

Netbackup7.0 I have daily, MSSQL, Catalogue tapes that were put in the same time when the system was comissioned.  Twelve tapes are being mounted but not written to.  They are not expired as I have tried the suggestions from the forums but a few still do not get written to.  One in particular is a MSSQL Log tape which has mounted an incredible 807 times but never written on nor does it expire of have an expiration date.  Any suggestions?

D

[Jean-Pierre_Bai]

What type LTO tapes, what type LTO drives, what is output of nbemmcmd -listmedia -mediaid tapename. 

Have you tried relabelling the tapes ? To see if they can be written too.

[welchda]

They are LTO4 tapes, the nbemmcmd I have not located on the Media server 2008R2, tapes have been relabeled, erased, unfroze, everything I could find to make it available to the system to write on.

D

[mph999]

Hmmm ...

You say you unfroze them, so what ever made them frozin in the first place could be the reason the are not being used.

Really need to see the logs from a job when it first trys to use one of these tapes.

I would put one of these tapes in a new volume pool (create one) and create a test policy to use this pool (so we can be sure we will use a specific tape).

I'd then run the job and get the logs at verbose 5 (or just verbose for the mm logs)

volmgr/debug/tpcommand

volmgr/debug/robots

netbackup/bin/bptm

os system messages file

Martin

[welchda]

First, they were not frozen I did unfreeze to see if that would make the tape take images.  I will try the other things you recommend but I have not looked at the log to see when the job runs (every 4 hours) that the tape is even being requested.

D

[Ankit_Maheshwar]

What the activity monitor detailed job showing when media is mounting for a job.

is this like so-

"current media complete requesting next media any"

check media status by

vmquery -listmedia mediaid 

eject media from library and reinsert same..

[welchda]

06/06/2013 14:03:15 - requesting resource Any
06/06/2013 14:03:15 - requesting resource xxxnbu02.NBU_CLIENT.MAXJOBS.xxxsql01
06/06/2013 14:03:15 - requesting resource xxxnbu02.NBU_POLICY.MAXJOBSxxx_MSSQL_Log
06/06/2013 14:03:15 - granted resource  xxxnbu02.NBU_CLIENT.MAXJOBS.xxxsql01
06/06/2013 14:03:15 - granted resource  xxxnbu02.NBU_POLICY.MAXJOBS.xxx_MSSQL_Log
06/06/2013 14:03:15 - granted resource  S0102A
06/06/2013 14:03:15 - granted resource  HP.ULTRIUM4-SCSI.001
06/06/2013 14:03:15 - granted resource  xxxnbu01-hcart-robot-tld-0
06/06/2013 14:03:16 - estimated 0 kbytes needed
06/06/2013 14:03:16 - started process bpbrm (pid=11684)
06/06/2013 14:03:25 - mounted S0102A
06/06/2013 14:03:25 - positioning S0102A to file 576
06/06/2013 14:03:26 - connecting
06/06/2013 14:03:31 - positioned S0102A; position time: 0:00:06
06/06/2013 14:03:36 - connected; connect time: 0:00:00
06/06/2013 14:03:36 - begin writing
06/06/2013 14:03:48 - end writing; write time: 0:00:12
the requested operation was successfully completed  (0)
 

The tape I want it to use is S0101A which both tapes were put in at the same time.

D

[Jean-Pierre_Bai]

nbemmcmd is in netbackup/bin/admincmd, what are tape drive types ?

Having output of nbemmcmd -listmedia -mediaid tapename would give a good idea of what is happpening.

I guess tapes are unlocked ?

I also guess relabelling was done successfully, which means tapes can be written to.

[Nicolai]

Has the tape been plaved in the none pool ?

Potential other pool could exist where no tape are allocated for backup.

[welchda]

===================================================

media ID:              S0101A
media type:            1/2" cartridge tape (6)
barcode:               S01-01-A
media description:     ---
volume pool:           MSSQL_Log (6)
robot type:            TLD - Tape Library DLT (8)
robot number:          0
robot slot:            40
robot control host:    xxxnbu01
volume group:          000_00000_TLD
vault name:            ---
vault sent date:       ---
vault return date:     ---
vault slot:            ---
vault session id:      ---
vault container id:    -
created:               05/05/2010 17:51:39
assigned:              ---
last mounted:          06/06/2013 13:26:20
first mount:           06/05/2010 06:12:46
expiration date:       ---
number of mounts:      802
max mounts allowed:    ---

====================================================================
Media GUID:                     61d4e6d2-5877-11df-8000-99a01ec180fa
Media ID:                       S0101A
Partner:                        -
Media Type:                     HCART
Volume Group:                   000_00000_TLD
Application:                    Netbackup
Media Flags:                    1
Description:                    ---
Barcode:                        S01-01-A
Partner Barcode:                --------
Last Write Host:                NONE
Created:                        05/05/2010 17:51
Time Assigned:                  -
First Mount:                    05/06/2010 06:12
Last Mount:                     06/06/2013 13:26
Volume Expiration:              -
Data Expiration:                -
Last Written:                   05/13/2013 06:23
Last Read:                      -
Robot Type:                     TLD
Robot Control Host:             xxxnbu01
Robot Number:                   0
Slot:                           40
Side/Face:                      -
Cleanings Remaining:            -
Number of Mounts:               802
Maximum Mounts Allowed:         0
Media Status:                   ACTIVE
Kilobytes:                      0
Images:                         0
Valid Images:                   0
Retention Period:               -
Number of Restores:             0
Optical Header Size Bytes:      0
Optical Sector Size Bytes:      0
Optical Partition Size Bytes:   0
Last Header Offset:             0
Adamm Guid:                     00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
Rsm Guid:                       00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
Origin Host:                    NONE
Master Host:                    xxxnbu02
Server Group:
Upgrade Conflicts Flag:
Pool Number:                    6
Volume Pool:                    MSSQL_Log
Previous Pool Name:             -
Vault Flags:                    -
Vault Container:                -
Vault Name:                     -
Vault Slot:                     -
Session ID:                     -
Date Vaulted:                   -
Return Date:                    -

===================================================

[Jean-Pierre_Bai]

It seems you tape 01A was last written on13 may 2013 so a few weeks ago. So it seems to be writeable

If you want 01A to be used first either

1) Put it in a volume pool say TEST and change your policy to use volume pool TEST. Then you will see if it is a problem with the tape. 

2) Freeze all tapes that are in ACTIVE state in Volume pool MSSQL_Log except for 01A and wait for next job to run. It should use the only ACTIVE tape in that pool.

I noticed that the 02A tape writes hardly any data on your tape, as write time is 12seconds. What is the size of the job ?

[Jean-Pierre_Bai]

I noticed that last write host is NONE, this reminds me of a problem where I have to remove entry for tape via nbemmcmd or was it vmdelete and create a new entry via bptm -makedbentry -m A00001 -den hcart -poolnum 1. The nbemmcmd entry may be corrupt.

[welchda]

It is the SQL Backup log files to commit changes on the SQL server saving space..  The job is tiny but it spins off 14 jobs most 458 KB and one that is nearly 2GB

D

[Jean-Pierre_Bai]

I would try what is listed in this technote.

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH58277

[welchda]

I got one of the tapes to work by assigning it to the media server and then doing a quick erase and the next backup the tape was picked up for the first time. 

D