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Babysitting BESR 2010 clients and issues

Jon_Sumida
Level 5

I really like the BESR 2010 product...except for one thing. It seems I have to "babysit" more clients then I would like to. By this I mean, I log on almost daily to my Management Console to make sure everything is going ok. But everytime there is a handful of clients that for whatever reasons have skipped/missed backups for several days or are stuck doing a backup. Normally I have to reboot the PCs or clear out the *.PQJ and *.PQH files and start a new base recovery point. I've been all over these forums and on search engines looking for reasons why these things are happening and there's no real concrete answers. I manage 300 PCs and doing this extra work to maintain the backups is stretching my time really thin. Is there an update with fixes coming soon? These are my main issues:

- skipped/missed backups, clients look fine (green check box in system tray icon). I can tell they missed because in the Manage Tasks, Computers view in the Console it shows last time run as several days ago

- misreporting of the "Last Run" date when you open the client. The one on my PC says my last backup ran was 42 days ago, but in my backup history it shows backups successfully completed every day

- backups hanging at 95% or even at other points. No future backups will run because they think it's stll not completed. Must reboot PCs and/or delete PQJ/PGH files


Again this happens on a handful of PCs usually and they seem to randomly happen. Different PCs, different dates, etc.  I've posted about some of these issues before and gotten nothing really except a link to this: " http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/352307.htm  "  That page might explain some of my issues, but there doesn't seem to be any progress on that. Anyone else experiencing any/all of these issues? I'm using version 9.0.1.36527
58 REPLIES 58

Linas
Level 6

It’s the status of desktops if they backed up did the backup job run did it finish

Why is the computer listed as being backed up when there is no backup?

Why computers show it’s not backed up when the backup just ran?

Why some are missing drive letters

Why jobs run multiple time why some fail why desktops lockup when backing up

Having to weed through tons of emails to try to follow events when did the backup start why did it fail did it finish

Aand support issues on hold forever wrong ques tech’s with limited knowledge about the product

Also I have noticed logs and events changing

Its seems you have to wait days to have events change

Maybe that’s supports strategy makes the customer wait long enough and the problems will resolve them selves

Like my pc I have waited weeks for my pc to backup and the minute I get through to support it shows my pc backup days ago?

Jon_Sumida
Level 5

Hi Chris, yes I see both of those types of events occur in both the standalone and on the console.

 

Jon_Sumida
Level 5

I didn't realize SP2 has been released. I thought I was subscribed to a mailing list that would update me of such things. When I access FileConnect I see the following:

 

BESR_2010_9.0.2.38472_Management_Solution.zip

BESR_2010_9.0.2.37914_Multilingual_Product.zip

 

Are these the SP2 installation files?

 

Is there a walk through document on how to do the update?

Linas
Level 6

I always call support and they are very helpful in installing

This is to critical to make mistakes in an enterprise

When you install or upgrade to newer version you have option to update to SP5

SP5 is a separate update you install from Symantec Installation Manager

I did this without knowing this will disable any 2000 support well you will not be able to manage any new 2000 desktops if you are already managing a 2000 desktop or server you will still be able to manage them

I am still struggling with deploying and getting reliable backup to work and have not deployed to all users and now I am stuck and can not backup some older legacy units.

Jon_Sumida
Level 5

wait, what is SP5 for?

criley
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited

SP5 is for SMP (Symantec Management Platform) which is what BESR-MS runs on.

criley
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited

Yes, those are both SP2 (9.0.2 = 2010 SP2).

You need to update to SP2 (for the Management Solution) via SIM (Symantec Installation Manager).

For the clients, you have several options:

1. Update via LiveUpdate

2. Update manually (using patch file)

3. Update via BESR-MS policy

Jon_Sumida
Level 5

I go into my SIM and it says no updates are currently available. Can I just run the files located in the zip: BESR_2010_9.0.2.38472_Management_Solution.zip?

 

Jon_Sumida
Level 5

looks like my SIM was configured to look at the wrong xml file. I changed it and now am going through the update process. Crossing fingers

Jon_Sumida
Level 5

There's an update for Symantec System Recovery 2011 Management Solution x86, version 10.0.0. I'm wondering if I should install this instead of SP2 or will it just introduce new set of issues. I'll probably wait on it to get more use.

criley
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited

Please ignore the SSR 2011 updates. This is the new version of BESR which has not been officially released yet. I'm not sure why it's even available as a download (I'm looking into this already).

Jon_Sumida
Level 5

Okay, that's what I did. I did see the announcement that you had to sign up to participate in the new release so I was curious as to why that was available via SIM already. Thanks Chris.

Jon_Sumida
Level 5

Sadly, updating to SP2 completely broke my BESR installation. I now have an escalated support case with Symantec. Sigh....

jbtsabw
Level 4

I am already running SP2.  However, you can't just install it from the installation manager because it will reinstall the entire server.  You will break everything.  I did this as well and it was a bit of work to get it all back and working properly.  The first thing you need to do it get your server pointed to your database.

Dushan_Gomez
Level 6

wow, what is the error or problem description mate ?

I am about to upgrade my whole datacenter BESR installation with the latest, but started to worried after seeing this ?

Linas
Level 6

I know there was always something I didn’t like about the Email messages from BESR

And I think I got it

They don’t tell you and useful information well they do tell you if something ran didn’t run or finish but what job?

Like this 

“Info 6C8F17E7: An automatic recovery point was not created because an earlier recovery point from the same job was still in progress” 

It’s like saying something was not created because something else was doing something else 

If it told me a specific backup xyz policy was not run because this other Backup Policy 123 was still running

Maybe I could spot the problem and resolve the issue quickly but for now there is no way to tell what job didn’t work

Jon_Sumida
Level 5

Dushan - this is exactly what happened:

- I ran Symantec Installation Manager (SIM). It stated I had several updates available. These were BESR 2010 SP2 and also Symantec Management Platform (SMP) SP4 and SP5

- I chose to install SMP SP4 because I had read in this thread that SP5 removes ability to support Windows 2000 PCs and I still have a handful of those. SP4 installation went smoothly.

- Started the BESR 2010 SP2 install via SIM. It downloaded the package and started the installation as normal. It was the end of the day and seeing the progress of the installation at 66%, I decided to leave and check on it in the AM. When I came back to the server in the AM it was still at 66%. 17 hours later! So I called Symantec Tech Support (India based?) and they had me open task manager to kill the installation process.

- After killing the installation process, opened up SIM and it showed all the BESR 2010 products updated to SP2, but said there was configuration errors with them. Gave the option to repair. Symantec tech support suggested to run the repairs. They all finished and everything reported it was fine.

- Opened up the BESR management console and it was full of XML errors and none of my policies or anything I had custom created was there. All my clients stopped getting any backup policy updates or license updates so they all started reporting that they were expired and giving warnings that no backup policies were in place. Tech support opened up logging for Altiris and took some screen shots, then eventually escalated the issue to some advanced Symantech Tech Support person (USA based)

- Advanced tech support walked started webex session and did multiple troubleshooting steps. Determined communication between server and Altiris agents were still working properly, but the BESR installation wasn't functioning. After speaking with several of his contacts they determined that the best route would be to start over from scratch. Thankfully I have BESR running on my server so I had a backup to revert to.

- I recovered my server from backup and now I'm working fine, but the issues I had wanted to address initially (the whole reason I am trying to move to SP2 in the first place). My next step is to do the upgrade again with the advance tech support guy walking me through it. It seems rather simple, but you never know. Something broke the first time I tried it.

Jon_Sumida
Level 5

jbtsabw - you say "you can't just install it from the installation manager because it will reinstall the entire server.  You will break everything"... how else are we to install it then? Symantec Tech Support specifically instructed me to do the update via SIM. Is there any other way? Should I be creating custom installation packages and then installing? It's pretty much doing the same thing.

criley
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited

If you are talking about SP2 for BESR-MS (not BESR) then it can only be installed via Symantec Installation Manager.