BESR 2010 - Unable to find the Exchange Information File (EIF)

[iainc]

I have a customer who is evaluating BESR2010 for a Small Business Server 2003. They are very pleased with everything so far, apart from the Granular Restore Option for Exchange. This fails with the Message "Unable to find the Exchange Information File (EIF)". They have reviewed the support  information regarding this problem occurring with earlier versions of BESR and have followed all of the suggested remedies to no avail. 

My customer has succesfully restored a full backup so, obviously the backup is good.

We have reviewed some suggested fixes / changes in a couple of articles in the support database.

The information here http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/293323.htm was either inappropriate or no help.

The information here http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/314373.htm is aimed at versions 8.5 and suggests a possible downgrade to v 8.0.

I am also rather concerned by the following statement on page 314373:

"The information here Symantec Corporation has acknowledged that the above-mentioned issue is present in the current version(s) of the product(s) mentioned at the end of this article. Symantec Corporation is committed to product quality and satisfied customers.

This issue is currently under investigation by Symantec Corporation. Pending the outcome of the investigation, this issue may be resolved by way of a patch or hotfix in current or future revisions of the software. However, this particular issue is not currently scheduled for any release.  If you feel this issue has a direct business impact for you and your continued use of the product, please contact your Symantec Sales representative or the Symantec Sales group to discuss these concerns.  For information on how to contact Symantec Sales, please see  http://www.symantec.com"

It appears that Symantec have taken an existing issue from 8.5 up to 2010.

Can anyone suggest anything to try? In my cuastomer's case, this problem is a showstopper and they will not buy the product if Granular Restore is unavailable.

Thanks in advance.

Iain

[criley]

Make sure that they are backing up all volumes that contain Exchange data in the same backup job otherwise you may see this error.

If this does not help, I would strongly advise you to open a case with tech support so that this can be looked at in more detail.

[iainc]

Thanks. Yes, the volumes are all being backed up in the same job.

Unfortunately I am unable to open a support case as this is the evaluation version of the software. My customer wants assurance that the software meets their requirements before they will purchase. They are now in the chicken and egg situation of being unwilling to purchase because of the problem but unable to get support because they haven't purchased it!!

I think there is a bit of a problem with no support for evaluation customers.

[criley]

I understand that's a difficult position to be in but it may be the only way to get a solution here. This type of problem is usually too involved to resolve via the forums. It could be an enviromental issue or possibly a defect with the product - either way, in-depth analysis of the logs/environment will more than likely be required.

Sorry, I can't give you a better alternative.

[iainc]

Thanks for your help.

To be honest though, I don't understand the point of supplying evaluation software if there is no possibility of providing support for it. In the event that they purchased and the issue could not be resolved would they be reimbursed for the purchase price?

[criley]

In the event that they purchased and the issue could not be resolved would they be reimbursed for the purchase price?

Are you referring to the cost of the support incident? If so, yes, I believe this is the case although I would suggest you double check this if/when you make the purchase as this is not my area of speciality.

[iainc]

Sorry, I am unaware there is a possibility of raising a single paid-for support incident. The support people I spoke to did not mention this can you give me some detail on how to go about this as that may be an option.

[criley]

Yes, you can purchase support for a single incident. All I can suggest is that you contact support again and ask about it:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/contact_techsupp_static.jsp

[Benoit_Somers]

Hello people,

More or less the same situation here: working 8.5 version with succesfull backup and granular restore. After upgrading to 2010-version, this error comes up, immediately before even making a new backup. This means the 2010 granular version gives this error and the 8.5 granular version does not, on the same backup file on the same computer under the same conditions.

Creating a new "fully 2010" backup does not solve the issue.

At the same time, I am getting an error event Id 12014 in the event viewer:

Microsoft Exchange couldn't find a certificate that contains the domain name <removed> in the personal store on the local computer. Therefore, it is unable to support the STARTTLS SMTP verb for the connector Internet with a FQDN parameter of <removed>. If the connector's FQDN is not specified, the computer's FQDN is used. Verify the connector configuration and the installed certificates to make sure that there is a certificate with a domain name for that FQDN. If this certificate exists, run Enable-ExchangeCertificate -Services SMTP to make sure that the Microsoft Exchange Transport service has access to the certificate key.

Suggestions anyone ?

Regards,

Benoit.