ARCserv not able to locate media and therefore stops the run

[cweems]

Has anyone had the problem of ARCserv not being able to locate next blank media? Then the ARCserv application stops the run, when the system has inventoried several blanks and has seen them at least one time?

If so my question is "have you been able to prove whether the cause of the problem was the tape library system or the ARCserv software?

I have also had the "unable to locate media" or "mount next blank tape" messages and the system just held the job until I inserted another tape in the library and typed OK in the prompt-for-service dialog box. Again there were inventoried blanks
available to ARCserv.

Thanks to the family for your assistance.

Chris Weems

 

[emerald]

Now that is interesting - I´m happy to find out I´m not the only one with this problem (which, by the way, is one of many others - see the thread called "Please help me, I´m losing my mind"..)

I´m using

ArcServe 6.61, build 834, SP 2a on
NT 4.0, SP 6a
I don´t use the ArcServe Database, because it is too limited. Instead I´m using MS SQL latest AS certified Option Pack.
I´m using the Tape Library Enterprise Option Pack
and my Libraries are

Qualstar 68120 and 6460s (Five big ones, two small ones).
Tape Drives are 3 Quantum DLT 8000 Drives per Library.

This problem has been bugging me for the past 3,5 months (that is when I inherited this wonderful collection of non-functional machinery ).

Did you also experience that ArcServe usually takes the tapes one by one, neatly in the order you inserted the tapes into the slots, but sometimes starts taking new tapes at random?

At first, I thought ArcServe had problems with (used) tapes. (I had Fujifilm DLTTape IV). Now I am using Quantum Tapes, only brand new ones, and the problem persists.

Your million dollar question "is it the software or the hardware?" has been occupying me as well.

Quite frankly, I´m quite convinced it is the software. Especially, since I get NO FEEDBACK WHATSOEVER from NArcServe. I have NEVER in my life experienced such lack of support. I opened 7 calls with them (3 months ago), escalated them umpteen times, each time they promise me that they will ring back, and I haven´t heard from them, not even when I bug them every two days, hoping that being a pain in the neck is going to persuade them to help me first so they can get rid of me. This used to be a successful strategy. As it doesn´t work this time, I presume there is something REALLY wrong with their software, and they can´t help me.

I am trying to prove now that by replacing ArcServe with Backup Exec and Windows 2000 in a test environment, leaving the rest of the conditions the same. The Test Environment will then back up exactly the same data as one of my servers + library that is in production, and which is causing me endless hassle as well. In this constellation I will change the Tape Library (I will use another brand).

I hope that the result will be that the Production Environment will still issue the same errors and that the Test Environment with Backup Exec is going to give me top performance with my old library.

That will give me a reason to advise the Board to chuck out ArcServe and buy Backup Exec.

However, IT-life is usually not that simple. I´m using 7 Servers with 7 Libraries (over the network - yuch - not my idea) to back up approx. 13 Terabyte a month... (counted in Tapes). I´m running a full back up every month with incrementals till the end of the month. They insist on keeping all the tapes here, so no rotation. I can´t do differential, because I would use up too many tapes, and money IS an issue here, unfortunately.
Our data volume (only files - no databases) is growing exponentially, and I hope Backup Exec can deal with that. I have no experience with the product. I just know it´s easy to handle and that everybody I talked to who used it, was very happy with it. Which I can´t say for the people I know that use ArcServe.

What configuration do you have? Do you use NT? Did ýou install all the Service Packs according to ArcServe´s specs and certifications (I did as far as was feasible - didn´t make a difference).

In the meantime, keep smiling

Cheers,

Emerald

 

[cweems]

Yes we are NT and yes we have installed up to the current build with all service packs. Hope you get to change products. this one is a nightmare.

Thanks for the input.

Chris

 

[wrgpaul]

No response to this question from anyone yet? I have been trying for over a month now, sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't, (mostly it doesn't).
The error message returned by Arcserve are very vague and unhelpful. For days it was saying "unable to find blank media", but on looking in the media details found that when formatted this took on an expiry date. Hallelujah, so I thought. I went one stage further and purchased blank tapes, formatted these with a two year expiry date, went to bed last night feeling confident it would work, yet on arrival at work this morning found all jobs failed yet again. The error message........unable to find blank media.
I have now run the jobs one by one, the first one was fine (overwrite), the second one (append) failed asking for a media name that didn't exist!! I can feel the window opening now and the server going through it!!
I am just waiting for the devices to remount in the hope that this user unfriendly system will realise that it has loads of blank tapes, after all it doesn't seem very intelligent and has to be hand held all the way.
As other members mentioned, there doesn't seem to be much help from Arcserve, there support pages, as far as I can tell, don't even refer to the problem, only a slight suggestion of cleaning the tape head!!!
My last five back ups have failed, now getting very nervous, but fortunately (for no apparent reason) were 100% successful last week and nothing had changed!
Can anyone, please please help, I am slowly turning grey! B-(

 

[wrgpaul]

Oh there is hope, but more work to do.
After a remount of all the tapes (manually of course), The library actually took a different tape and the back ups seem to be running, however I feel a visit to the comm's room at 2am to perform the funtion manually again may be needed as this thing cannot be relied on.
I only post this info., as it may prompt a thought from someone as to what the problem is!

 

[wrgpaul]

No response to this question from anyone yet? I have been trying for over a month now, sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't, (mostly it doesn't).
The error message returned by Arcserve are very vague and unhelpful. For days it was saying "unable to find blank media", but on looking in the media details found that when formatted this took on an expiry date. Hallelujah, so I thought. I went one stage further and purchased blank tapes, formatted these with a two year expiry date, went to bed last night feeling confident it would work, yet on arrival at work this morning found all jobs failed yet again. The error message........unable to find blank media.
I have now run the jobs one by one, the first one was fine (overwrite), the second one (append) failed asking for a media name that didn't exist!! I can feel the window opening now and the server going through it!!
I am just waiting for the devices to remount in the hope that this user unfriendly system will realise that it has loads of blank tapes, after all it doesn't seem very intelligent and has to be hand held all the way.
As other members mentioned, there doesn't seem to be much help from Arcserve, there support pages, as far as I can tell, don't even refer to the problem, only a slight suggestion of cleaning the tape head!!!
My last five back ups have failed, now getting very nervous, but fortunately (for no apparent reason) were 100% successful last week and nothing had changed!
Can anyone, please please help, I am slowly turning grey!
I have just found though, that by mounting the media again and resubmitting the job that it seems to actually recognise the blank media (although it seems completely random as to which tape it takes).
As I type this in the comm's room, the job is trying to connect to the media and hasn't failed yet! But it is fairly unrealistic to manually do this each time particularly in view of the fact this is supposed to be an automated back up system!!!

 

[wrgpaul]

Just found this article elsewhere in the Forum, this might be useful. Will report back on findings!!

article is headed

PLEASE HELP!!!!!!! LOSING MY MIND

It suggests that the errors we have experienced my be scsi related, hence the inconsistency of it all.

Regards

Paul

 

[Webcentral]

From what I can gather on this, with my own experience and some suggestions from tech support for CA in Aus, renaming the .qsd directory and rebuilding the jobs seems to fix this problem. This is just a suggestion anyway.

 

[dazz42]

I had a similar problem and it turned out to be that the tapes weren't transfering to the scratch set. Check that the media is in the scratch set in the meid pool and try.

 

[Guest_imported]

To wrgpaul
Your problem is actually minor and wondered why till now no one (Technical Users) have been able to help you. First I need to know your backup structure. Are you using a single primary server or multiple? Are your licenses appropriate? Are you backing up a SAN environment and finally Are you using any barcodes for tape labelling?

 

[techsolid]

If you are using rotation scheme, the backup needs blank media for the first week and then it uses the tapes that were used in the first week. For this, you need to provid blank media for the first week. Make sure you have blank media for first week. Else, use Over write same media, blank first then any media back up option

This resolves the issue

 

[cweems]

OK Folks here is the sceem - The Server load is 6.61 - Build 834SP2A - The Client load is ARCservIT Client Agent v6.61 for HP-UX A.10.0x (Hp 9000/700,800 series) (Running on HP-UX B.10.20 A 9000/785) B1009030399.

When the server attempts to access the Unix client it can't and gets the message that it could not connect to the target system. This is caused by the fact that the client is in a "Stopped" state. My question is still "what would stop the client?" I can't run any PRE/POST processes on it since I can't connect to the system to begin with. I need to find out why the client goes from "enabled running" to "enabled stopped". We have applied a patch, furnished by CA but do not have a good feel for whether or not is it going to fix the problem. CA indicated that some of the ARCserve processes weren't getting started at reboot. I don't understand what that could be, because the backup runs for one to five or ten days before it goes back to the "enabled stopped" condition.

 

[LolaRed]

I'm betting my ruby slippers on a memory leak in the HP-UX agent. Any takers? We'll never be able to prove it though, unless CA suddenly and suspiciously sticks a new "fix" on their so-called support site.

 

[Guest_imported]

Hiay, can anyone tell me why dammit why is Archserve cancelling the jobs that I schedule to run each and every evening? I leave them READY, set to run at 22:00 and in the morning it says CANCELLED with no explanation. Not 1 iota is backed up I fear I could be in trouble very soon unless I fix this. Please help!

 

[horp]

I have simlar problems to those previsouly mentioned, however slightly different. I am running AS 2000, and the backup job starts ok. But near the end on the backup job (99%) Arcserve displays the message "W3828 Unable to find this media" It only occurs when tryiny to backup exchange (information store), It doens't seem to have a problem backing up other parts of exchange. I have all the relevant agents for exchange.
Any Ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Guest_imported]

I ran into this issue too and endured a month of terrible support from Arcserve support too... Ended up figuring out that the problem was that the Arcserve database keeps getting corrupt and as a result has a problem figuring out exactly what tapes are blank. The only way to fix this that I know of right now is to delete the Arcserve database and repair arcserve....
Again Arcserve support was no help...

 

[ddaily]

I have been fighting Media errors ever since I got this new Super Dlt express library. It worked great on the first 150 tapes and then when I got in a new batch of tapes, I kept getting Media Error, Cant find blank media. I returned and recieved probably about another 200 tapes with the same problem. So it was not the tapes. Everytime I use one of the 150 original tapes, it works fine. No one can solve my problem either. I has to be in the software. I am using Arcserve 2000 sp2 on Windows 2000 Server sp2. Quad 800 with gig of ram.

 

[horp]

Therlocker -> How do you go about deleting the darabase and repairing Arcserve? Do you have to manually delete each record one by one, that can't be right.

 

[Guest_imported]

There are two ways that I go about deleting the database. If it's a sql server database, I stop the database service in Arcserve, go into SQL Server Enterprise Manager and delete the ASDB database. I then repair arcserve by running setup for arcserve and choosing repair... It will create a new SQL Database. You will usually get a postinstall error but don't worry about it.
I then start Arcserve up and everything usually runs fine.
If it's a VLDB database then you go into the Database directory and delete all the astpsdat.* files. Then I run a repair.... Usually works good. If you have any other questions let me know.

 

[monkeylizard]

OK, since there don't seem to be many helpful suggestions (OK, a few), but mostly multiple complaints of the same problem, let me toss in a few thoughts.

1. From the Backup Wizard on the Destination Tab. Make sure that the Group name is correct and is a valid Media Group. For Media Name use and * instead of an actual tape name. This will allow AS to search for Blank tapes and not use any one particular tape.

2. Also in the Backup Wizard, click the Options button (little finger pointing at colored cylinders). Under the Backup Media tab be sure that Overwrite Same Media Name then Blank Media (or) Overwrite Same Media Name then Blank Media first, Then Any Media is selected.

3. Take a look at an Informational Post that I've placed out here in the past. Go back to the main part of this ArcServe Forum and click the lightbulb icon. There's a post about Database and performance issues. If you are not currently performing these tasks, then you may end up where therlocker is and have to start deleting/recreating your database.

4. The unpopular solution...Uninstall ArcServe, search the registry (NT, I don't know what you'd do in Unix or Netware) for any CA or ArcServe Entries and remove them. Reboot server, install ArcServe from scratch (don't forget about RegisterIT) and try again. If you still have problems, don't rule out ArcServe, it could still be the problem. I agree that it's junk.

Good Luck and post back here if I can be of any more detriment to your already lousy backup system.

NT4.0 - SP6a
ArcServe AE 6.61 - SP2a
IBM Netfinity hardware with ALT 14tape library and Quantum DLT 7000 drive. Monkeylizard
-Isaiah 35-