Arcserve acting like tape is full when it is not -Error W3828

[mcse924]

I am getting the following message on one of my backup jobs:

W3828 - Unable to find this media or blank media (Media="name of media" - "date", SEQ=2)

The job is acting as if I have run out of space on my DLT media, and is looking for another tape to continue. The job will then hang until I manually stop it.

However, the log shows that "only" 59GB of data was backed up. I'm using DLT 40/80 media with hardware compression enabled. In the past I have been able to backup over 70GB with no issues. This has happened on more than one occasion, to several jobs, using several different tapes, so I know it is not the physical media.

Any ideas?

Carpe diem, procrastination is the thief of time...

 

[ReddLefty]

Check the Logs in \LOGS and see if it says Media is full in that job. That will explain everything.

It IS possible your tape is full. Hardware compression does not store 2:1 necessarily. It depends on the amount of compressed files you are trying to backup.

Simply put, your tape can store 40G compressed data, 80G non-compressed data. If your backing up a bunch of ZIPs for example, you'll run out of space after 40 Gigs since your hardware compression on the tape drive cannot compress it any more when it stores it on the tape.



"In space, nobody can hear you click..."

 

[mcse924]

Redd,

Think you mean the other way around (80 compressed, 40 non), but i get it. However, i'm not backing up compressed files and have had hardware compression set for a long time now, with few issues. The log file you refer to only states the aforementioned error message. I can see at what point the job begins to ask for a new media, but not how much space is left.

I did figure out, however, that this particular job is up to about 75GB, right on the cusp of maxxing out, so I will need to re-think the job.

Carpe diem, procrastination is the thief of time...

 

[ReddLefty]

No,I meant 40G compressed and 80G uncompressed. Look at if from the DATA's point of view. You get 40Gigs of compressed data onto a tape, or 80Gigs of uncompressed data. But as long as you understand what I meant, that's what counts.

Oddly enough, your logs should still say: Media full.



"In space, nobody can hear you click..."

 

[xenotec]

ARCserve receives an alert from the tape drive itself via SCSI commands. Below would be an example of the SCSI information
SENSE ABSL:???? End Of Media Detected 40
EX SENSE ABSL:???? End-Of-Partition/Medium Detected 00, 02

You can performance tune the Block size of the DLT unit if you are backing up small files. An old link on CA's support site for V6 is

http://support.ca.com/techbases/asnt/NASNT123.html

simply find the tapeengine key in the registry and follow.
NOTE: if you change the block size you will need to re-format tapes and also be unable to restore from older tapes unless you change the block size back to the original setting

 

[mcse924]

Redd,

OK. NOW I understand what you meant. But my log does not show "Media full" and I am not receiving any of the SCSI messages mentioned by XENO.

Weird. What does "W3828 - Unable to find this media or blank media" actually mean then???

Carpe diem, procrastination is the thief of time...

 

[xenotec]

The only way you would see the SCSI Commands that I mentioned is to have the Tape Engine in Debug. This creates a TAPE.LOG. This file records all the SCSI commands and can grow very large and should only be enabled if CA Support advise.
W3828 simply means that it is unable to find media in the drive of either "Blank" or one that is available in the Scratch Set.

 

[mcse924]

OK. How would I enable this Debug mode for the Tape Engine? It's probably a registry setting right?

So is it safe to say, IF I did have the Tape Engine in Debug mode, I would get the "media full" message AND the W3828 message?

Carpe diem, procrastination is the thief of time...

 

[ReddLefty]

That error could be cause by the job looking for a specific tape... make sure you select the "*" in the Device group for the tape job and not a specific tape in the device group. It could be that your job is looking for the "Monday" tape, yet you insert a blank media. When it's formatted, it won't match the tape name, so it wait for the right tape.. prompting you for the "Insert "this" media.

Check also, your Backup options on the job. If I remember correctly, there are options that will wait for new tape but only for so long, then it will abort the job entirely... but you should still get "Media Full" in the logs for this part.



"In space, nobody can hear you click..."

 

[davidmichel]

In this case there is no need to enable the Tape Engine debug mode since the W3828 message reported would only be reported if the end of tape was reached. However in answer to your question it is enabled via the Server Admin, select Admin, Configuration, then the Tape Engine tab.

After the job you can check the Database for the details on that tape to find out just how much data was written to tape.