Ready; No idle devices are available
I'm new to Symantec Backup Exec as I've taken over the duties of someone else that left the company. The problem that I'm having is I can't get Backup Exec to backup anything, not to tape, not to a shared drive, etc.. Logically I would have thought the issue was that the previous employee had used his account for all Symantec functions, I was able to change his account information for all the services and the connection to the server. Everything appears to be fine, I'm able to do a Test Run without any problems but when I go to do a backup I don't receive any alerts I just get a message that says "Ready; No Idle devices are available". Same result no matter where I try to backup to. Anyone seen this before, have any suggestions of how I can fix it? We're using Backup Exec 2012 S1a. Thanks28KViews1like11Comments
Impressions of BackupExec 2012
Is it just me, or does anyone else absolutely HATE the redesign of Backup Exec? I have worked with BE since version 8, and I have become acutely familiar with the menus, where everything is, and how it works. This redesign of the UI reminds me of the differences between Microsoft Office 2003 and Office 2007, only much worse. Menus are now hidden behind other menus, and everything has a completely counter-intuitive feel. At first, I thought that the feeling would pass as I grew more familiar with the product, but in fact my dislike has grown as I have found more issues. Does anyone else feel the same way?22KViews56likes417Comments
A failure occurred querying the Writer status.
Dear all, Since some weeks I have been experiencing this horrible error. I have consulted the Symantec Support pages, but I can find no 'permanent' solution for the environment I am using. Rebooting the server every day is not an option, this is the fileserver that people access remotely almost nearly 24/7. It also doesn't seem to work, the first one or two backups after a reboot work but then it just goes back into the error listen in this threads topic. There is also a suggestion about freeing more space on C:\, I think there is enough (see below). My backup server is Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard. It's fully up to date up with the most recent Windows Updates. This is a physical server. The server I am having trouble with is Windows Server 2012 Standard. It's fully up to date up with the most recent Windows Updates. This is also a physical server. It has a C:\ drive with 125GB free of 150GB It has a D:\ drive with 1.6TB free of 1.6TB It has an E:\ drive with 2.2TB free of 5.5TB I have attached a screenshot showing the amount of times this server won't backup properly because of the above error. The worst thing about it is because I am backup up such an immense amoutn of data it takes about 25-30 hours to do a full backup. But it doesn't go into error until it's completely done! How can it POSSIBLY give a Writer error status at the very end of the backup process!! How is that even possible? The writer error is about failing to make a snapshot, why does it not INSTANTLY see that theres a problem and goes into error, why do I have to wait for 30 hours in anticipation to see if the backup software does why I purchased it. I have 53 servers to backup which takes me over four days, if my fileserver goes into error my entire backup schedule for that week goes out the window. This is becoming increasingly annoying.I don't want to have to come in on weekends because the backup software andomly decides it doesn't want to work. I'd like to add that my Exchange server also experiences this problem, except not that often. It's just as annoying though as you can understand that if my fileserver gets used 24/7 the Exchange server can't exactly get a daily reboot either. It's even more of a pita to reboot. All my other servers never have any problems, physical or virtual. Hyper-V or V-Sphere. It just works. Please advise. ThanksSolved17KViews1like7CommentsHow do i remove a disc storage ?
Hi, i have a disc storage i want to delete. I deleted all backupsets and all jobs that used this disc storage. I disabled the storage and tried to delete it, but BE complains, that there are some jobs still using this disc storage. I tried to delete the job history, but now luck. any idea?Solved15KViews3likes12Comments
Problem with VSS ASR Writer
Hi all, I'm using Backup Exec 2012 fully patched on Windows 2008 R2 standard SP1 Very often I have a situation that many backup jobs failed for various reasons. The weird thing is that the very same jobs run perfectly for many days (with the same selections for the same remote servers) until I get to the point with massive failures. After that, (because I know now what is the cause most of the times) I have to check the VSS writers status where I'm always getting the ASR writer in failed state or waiting for completion. This is a really frustrating situation because I can't be rely to the continuity of backup operations. Finally, what is the reason that the ASR writer in getting into unstable status so often? Is there any other workaround to bring it back to a stable status without a server restart? Is it a Symantec or a Microsoft issue and is there any released to public patch that I can use? Please help guys! Honestly, it is not a solution to have to restart a server (Media, Exchange, etc) because every now an then a writer fails. Many thx in advanceSolved15KViews2likes17CommentsPhysical volume library drive or Robot paused, offline or disabled
Hi all, I had opened up the magzine of the autoloader and replace the tape manually. After that, I encountered the error whenever I tried to bring the robotic library online and which I swop back to the original tape. Now, how do I resolved this and what would be the correct procedures to replace the tape from the autoloader using BE2012? Regards, QingyanSolved15KViews3likes8Comments
Backup Exec Server Service Won't Start
My Backup Exec Server service stopped at 10:06 this morning. I try to restart the service using services.msc and I get the following: The Backup Exec Server service on Local Computer Started and the stopped. Some services stop automatically if they are not in use by other services or programs. I get the following in Event Viewer: Event 57802, The Backup Exec Server Service did not start. An internal error (10) occurred in object 13. I looked to see if any updates were installed and I did find SP2 was installed today, 10/23/13. So it seems that this update may have broken something. I did not apply this update nor can it be uninstalled. I have tried changing the service logon to Local System account and the service still would not start. I have also tried repairing the installation with no success starting the service. I appreciate any feedback. P.S. I find it kind of odd that this happened after my support agreement ended a couple of days ago and I renewed the agreement. Coincidence?Solved14KViews1like11CommentsJobs stuck indefinitely in Queued Status
We have had an ongoing issue for about 2 months now, and since we have had a clean build (3 times now) for Backup Exec 2012. We have opened numerous cases with Symantec to resolve this, and they claim the first time that HotFix 209149 (see http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH204116 ) corrects the issue. The issue is also noted by seeing Robotic Element errors stating that OST media is full and it brings the "virtual" slot for the PureDisk or OST storage device offline. Restarting the services in BE only makes the problem worse and causes a snowball effect whereby jobs constantly error in the ADAMM log files. Essentially, the jobs never can get a concurrency/virtual slot and they stay Queued forever. I have seen others on this Forum with this problem, and while the Forum administrator seems to mark them as "Solved", they are not - because I see the threads drop off with no resolution identified. Are other people having this problem? If so, how are you overcoming it? Once it starts the environment is essentially dead in the water because the jobs never start (they sit Queued forever) - save for one concurrency which for our size environment is only 1/4 the need we have. We use CAS and 4 MMS servers with 2008 R2 with all patches applied, PureDisk 32TB volume on each MMS, Data Domain OST connection to DD-670 OST with OST-Plug 2.62 (28TB), replicated catalogs, and duplicate jobs for optimized deduplication between MMSs. We run BE 2012 SP3 clean - we reinstalled with SP3 slipstreamed because Symantec said this problem could be fixed through database repair by them manually or by reinstall...we chose reinstall (even though they did offer to "fix" the issue with database repair). We chose reinstall to validate whether SP3 truly fixes the issue. It is clear to us it does not. We are looking for anyone else who has had this problem to report into this forum. Thank you, Dana14KViews4likes15Comments
Solution for VSS exceptions with VMware guests / VM tools
Hi everyone, We have been experiencing VSS issues with VMware guests in regards to the installed Backup Exec Agent and a previously installed VMware Tools VSS option. Uninstalling the VMware Tools VSS option in various ways including restarts did not fix our issues. If you search the internet for solutions, you find many attempts but no real solution or explanation. One of our admins spend several hours with the Veritas support without a solution, he was about to escalate the issue with them, when we found the root cause and could actually fix our issues. First the steps to solve this: Uninstall the VMware Tools VSS option (no restart will be requiered) Make sure VMware VSS service was deleted If this is not the case, you might need to do so manually and remove additional DLL's etc. as well as restart the system, but this is independent from this solution You might have already done steps 1 and 2 but you still get VSS exceptions from the backup that says you have more than one VSS agent installed: V-79-8192-38331 - The backup has detected that both the VMware VSS Provider and the Symantec VSS Provider have been installed on the virtual machine 'hostname'. However, only one VSS Provider can be used on a virutal machine. You must uninstall the VMware VSS Provider. Now you wonder what causes this and you get stuck You could uninstall the Veritas/Symantec Backup Exec Agent and only back the system up per VMDK You would lose the GRT / granular backup / restore capabilities Check your registry for the following reg key HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\BeVssProviderConflict If this key exists, but your VMware VSS provider is uninstalled, you need to follow up with step 5 Open a notepad as administrator Open this file in the notepad C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Tools\manifest.txt Search for the following two entries: Vcbprovider_2003.installed vcbprovider.installed Make sure both of them are set to FALSE, most likely one of them is TRUE Run a test backup This test backup now should not show the exception anymore The registry key should vanish (refresh/press F5) without you taking action So what happened? You uninstalled the VMware Tools VSS provider, but this manifest file did not get updated. We actually could see that it sometimes does get updated and sometimes does not. This seems to be some kind of issue with the VMware Tools uninstalled/installer. But why this manifest.txt file? As we found out, there scripts that get executed by Symantec/Veritas Backup Exec before the backup. You might find them in two locations, and it seems to depend a bit on the Windows version which script is executed (at which location). You could edit them both and just undo the checks in the scripts, but this wouldn't be correct. It is more correct to update the manifest.txt file. If you want to, you can check the date/time of the manifest.txt file before you change it - you might see it was not updated while you uninstalled the VMware Tools VSS provider (assuming you did only do this and not do additional installs/uninstalls within the VMware Tools / please note as well that this only is true when you still experienced those issues). Now, back to those scripts, you find them here: C:\Windows C:\Program Files\Symantec\Backup Exec\RAWS\VSS Provider The name of the script that matters: pre-freeze-script.bat This script checks several DLLs, registry entries, paths and on Windows 2008 and newer the ProgramData-Path for this specific manifest.txt file and the two entries mentioned. Once you uninstall the VMware VSS provider, and the file did not get updated, you might see this issue and wonder how to solve it. The solution is to simply update it to mirror the uninstallation of the VMware VSS provider (vcbprovider). We double checked this with several installations and could see if the file actually gets updated, those two values are set to FALSE, if it doesn't, at least one of the values remains true, what causes the pre-freeze-script.bat to write the registry key mentioned earlier and therefor causing the issue in the backup - exceptions. If you still have the same issues after updating the manifest.txt, simply check all the DLL's that are mentioned in the script and make sure they don't exist. You might also consider to manually delete the registry-key (it seems to be just a dumy-key) to make sure there is no issue that prevents the script from deleting it. Make sure it does not re-appear after a backup! Otherwise you might still have some DLLs left on your system that cause the script to re-create the registry key. Hope this helps a few of you out there. This was an ongoing issue for a while and I came accross those issues many times ever since Windows 2008. This applies to Windows 2008 R2, Windows 2012, Windows 2012 R2 and pretty sure to Windows 2016 as well. It helped us getting rid of those issues completely and actually not even needing a single restart of the guest VM to solve the issues (removing the VMware VSS provide did not need a restart). Regards Florian RossmarkSolved14KViews2likes10Comments
Ready; No idle devices are available
I'm new to Symantec Backup Exec as I've taken over the duties of someone else that left the company. The problem that I'm having is I can't get Backup Exec to backup anything, not to tape, not to a shared drive, etc.. Logically I would have thought the issue was that the previous employee had used his account for all Symantec functions, I was able to change his account information for all the services and the connection to the server. Everything appears to be fine, I'm able to do a Test Run without any problems but when I go to do a backup I don't receive any alerts I just get a message that says "Ready; No Idle devices are available". Same result no matter where I try to backup to. Anyone seen this before, have any suggestions of how I can fix it? We're using Backup Exec 2012 S1a. ThanksImpressions of BackupExec 2012
Is it just me, or does anyone else absolutely HATE the redesign of Backup Exec? I have worked with BE since version 8, and I have become acutely familiar with the menus, where everything is, and how it works. This redesign of the UI reminds me of the differences between Microsoft Office 2003 and Office 2007, only much worse. Menus are now hidden behind other menus, and everything has a completely counter-intuitive feel. At first, I thought that the feeling would pass as I grew more familiar with the product, but in fact my dislike has grown as I have found more issues. Does anyone else feel the same way?
