WARNING: unable to obtain list of files using specified search criteria

[Colin_North]

In the B-A-R interface I get this message when I try to obtain the restore information for certain backups for certain servers (this doesn't occur for every backup job for a particular server). For example, I have one server that performs 4 seperate backup jobs every evening, and in the BAR gui when I click 3 of those jobs I get the restore information, but never for the other job. This applies to every backup day.

I've looked at some other people's posts in this forum and seen that in \netbackup\db\images\client_name people have had zero sized files - I have checked this and I don't see any zero sized files (apart from the .lck ones).

Anyway, I am on Windows 2003 Server with NBU 6.0 MP4.

Colin.

[Andy_Welburn]

Colin

Any difference between this 'failed' one & the other three with regards to properties/type of backup etc?

Can you see in Activity Monitor or Client Backups report that data has been backed up?

Any exclude lists that may counter what this 'failed' backup is trying to save?

If I can think of any more questions ... 

[Colin_North]

Andy,

Thanks for your reply. The job that fails to display any info in the BAR gui is in the same backup policy as the 3 other jobs that do display info. The policy is MS WINDOWS NT.

All looks OK in activity monitor, and the relevant job is marked with a status 0.

The client in question does have some excludes in place (the default netbackup ones & one other), but none of these affect the files for this particular backup job.

I have looked at various reports and there's nothing.

Could be a call to Symantec is on the cards...

Colin.

[Andy_Welburn]

Colin

Just had a look on our system as I recollect something similar & came across this 'issue' on my very first check!!

Looking at backups carried out on our master (used for many & varied nfs mounts etc etc etc) in the BAR GUI & there were (amongst many other full backups)  4 incrementals. 3 of these were ok the 4th came up with your error message. It turns out that in this instance nothing was backed up for this particular save as nothing had changed (it was a differential don't forget). This was confirmed by looking at the Client Backups report for the period covering these backups & 'lo-and-behold' in this report for this backup "number of files=0" & "Kilobytes=32" i.e. in essence an empty directory.

Could this be what's occurring for yourself - an incremental of a directory that hasn't changed since the previous backup?

[J_H_Is_gone]

I was thinking along the same lines as Andy

check the job in the activity monintor... did it really backup any files?

[Colin_North]

Andy,

All of the backups in this particular policy are Full, there's no incr/diffs. All 4 jobs for this server are reported with a status 0 in Activity Monitor. The client backups report returns the following for the latest backup job with the GUI issue:

server_name 24/09/2008 18:00:59 policy_name 0 1 Full_Daily Full 00:00:55 No server_name_1222275659

I checked under \netbackup\db\images\server_name and found the relevant image files...

policy_name_1222275659_FULL = 2KB         
policy_name_1222275659_FILL.f = 1KB 

All image files for this server are pretty small, even the jobs that do display in the restore GUI.

I've also checked the actual physical folder on the client and the files were changed recently, but still getting this GUI error.

[Andy_Welburn]

Colin

Looking at that line from the report:

---

@Colin NORTH wrote:

server_name 24/09/2008 18:00:59 policy_name 0 1 Full_Daily Full 00:00:55 No server_name_1222275659

---

Altho' it's done the backup successfully, it's not backed anything up: 0 files & 1 Kilobytes.

So the problems not why you're getting the error in the BAR GUI but why it's not backing anything up in the first instance.

So it beggars the question : what's the problem with the contents of this folder/drive/whatever ?

Again, we come to exclude lists (which you say you have none); are they 'special' files ; are there any skipped files in the All Log Entries report (sorry, no there aren't as you say they finish with Status 0 not Status 1). ????

Can you create another policy with just this problem client & manually back it up & see what happens??

[Colin_North]

Andy,

Thanks for your quick response. I had been thinking about creating a new seperate policy to attempt a backup of this particular folder, so I'll try that and see what happens.

I did think that there might be a windows permissions problem with the folder/files, but all looks fine.

Cheers, Colin.