Arcserve is taking up all my disk space with Log files 2

[mrbendy]

This is an email that I recently sent to my boss. The server name has been changed to protect the innocent.

"Today I was trying to replicate the logon scripts on SERVER_X and got the error that there was not enough disk space to perform the operation. I checked this out and found that there was ZERO free space on the C drive of SERVER_X. This is very bad as it is the system drive on the server which user's keep their important data. I looked deeper to find that Arcserve had been generating a log file for a job that was deleted last week and had taken up all available disk space (almost 2 Gigs), so I had to stop all the Arcserve services and found that Arcserve was still writing to the log file, so I manually deleted one of the 1GB files it had created which it immediately re-created and started writing to. So I changed the attributes to Read Only so it could no longer write to that log file. There is still a 900MB log file that I cannot remove even with all the services stopped.

So as it stands, we have NO backups, and if I turn the backups back on it will generate another log file causing the same problems. And I can honestly say that working with Arcserve is a full time job and even if the backups were running tonight, I feel less than confident that we could actually restore certain files from backup. Perhaps we should consider another backup solution (which I have already researched) or get an Arcserve representative to come out and teach us how to use their backup software.

I feel that backups are one of the most important items in a corporate environment and the fact that we cannot get a FULL backup of the mission critical systems that we are supporting is very un-nerving. I have tried to work with Arcserve since I have been here and I feel that I cannot support the software adequately. I would really hate it if there was some cotrastrophy that we couldn't recover from tape and I hadn't said all of this."

The log file was ARCSERVE.LOG, the error that it keeps reporting is
0021017 103420 17 E8602 Failed to read from database. (DBNAME=\Individual Mailboxes\USERNAME\Calendar, EC=)

I would appreciate any help with this issue. Thanks.

 

[clcarroll]

If you want to decrease ARCserve’s Database’s size, please follow instructions:

1. Close all ARCserve programs (i.e. Manager, Server Admin)
2. Stop ARCserve Database Engine Service
3. Delete all files like *.CH? from the ARCserve\database\directory (MAKE SURE THE DATABASE ENGINE HAS STOPPED BEFORE DELETING FILES. If the engine has not been stopped, you will corrupt the database, and you will have to uninstall and reinstall ARCserve.)
4. Start ARCserve Database Engine Service
5. Start ARCserve Server Admin
6 Select Database Engine tab
7 Pull down the menu “Operation”
8 Select “Initialize Database”
9 Switch from “All Database” to “The Database to be Initialized”
10 Select ONLY the Database “ASTPSDAT”
11 Press the Initialize button.

**Again, make sure these instructions are followed precisely!!

 

[prudent]

perpetualproblem's soultion will help you delete the current database, but will not prevent it reoccuring. It seems that ARCserve is trying to do something (access the database) and cannot do it, therefore it keeps on writing.
I would recommend you un-install and re-install ARCserve (if that is possible in your environment).

 

[mrbendy]

I appreciate the help, believe me. I plan on un-installing and re-installing it this weekend.

I tried to go through perpetualproblem's detailed solution (thanks for the effort), however, I am running Arcserve 2000 and I am unable to locate the "Pull down the menu “Operation”". If I am looking in the incorrect place, please help this clueless admin out. Thanks again for the help.

 

[speshalyst]

You can find this on the ARCserve server admin.

you can get to this module via the ARcserve manager as well as
the ARcserve program group
So it Shall be Written!
So it Shall be Done!!

 

[mrbendy]

Thank you speshalyst, I re-read the instructions by perpetualproblem and realized that it was there all along. My bad.

Well, now I have another problem. I followed the steps from perpetualproblem and I get the error:

"Failed to initialize database (asjob).
Please close other ARCserve applications and try again."

I don't have any other Arcserve apps running, no clients etc. Any ideas on how to overcome this one? Thanks again for your help.

 

[PMLMIS]

Hi, Just wondering whether the error:

"Failed to initialize database (asjob).
Please close other ARCserve applications and try again"

have being dealt with.

I followed the same steps and try initializing astpsdat only, and ended up with the same error.

 

[GSC]

mrbendy,

If you do the re-installation of Arcserve you should consider to put it on another drive than the System drive, C-Drive in your case.
As logs and database will grow you will have problems again.

To prevent the logs of growing you should look into the below.
In the options button check the Operation and Log tabs.
Here you can disable the Recording of the Database and the Log. Doing this you won't get any loggs but then again it won't fill up your server. Or if you want the Recording and logging running the partial logging won't fill up your server as fast as full logging.

Good Luck

GSC

 

[mrbendy]

Well, this was a very timely update I must say. Things have been going quite well for us since we re-installed arcserve 2000. However, just this morning, I found that I had nearly 2.5GB of log files which left me with about 35MB of free space on my drive. I searched some other discussions in this forum and came up with the following solution, which worked for me in the interum. Thanks again to all for the help!

The best method is to do the following:
1.) Close all ARCserve programs (i.e. Manager, Server Admin)
2.) Stop ARCserve Database Engine Service
3.) Delete all files like *.CH? from the \ARCserve\database\ directory
4.) Start ARCserve Database Engine Service
5.) Start ARCserve Server Admin
6.) Select Database Engine tab
7.) Pull down the menue "Operation"
8.) Select "Initialize Database ..."
9.) Switch from "All Databases" to "The Database to be initialized"
10.) Select ONLY the Datbase "ASTPSDAT"
11.) Press the Initialize button

This should ZERO your 1.6GB Database. Each run of your Backup Job will fill this Database again with new records (if you use the Backup Job Option "Record Detail Information&quot, so be sure to limit the history days in ARCserve Server Admin Database Configuration to 8 or 15 days. You allways can scan a tape to list the sessions and merge back a pruned session into the database at any time (either from an old tape, or if you would need the content of the current tapes after initializing your ASTPSDAT).

 

[PMLMIS]

Thanks, tried that, but it didn't work.
I didn't re-install the Arcserve, is that my only option left?