Backup Exec Job Engine dies for no apparent reason.

[Palindrome]

I have an install of Backup Exec Version 8.6 on a Windows 2000 server backing up Netware and NT servers. Every now and then the Backup Engine service dies for no apparent reason. This causes the current backup to frezze and the next few scheduled jobs to disappear. Once this happens, you have no choice but to restart the Job Engine service and loose the current backups and the logs associate with them. You next have to figure out what was the next few scheduled jobs and then reschedule them. Veritas support is clueless on this one. Anyone experience this problem?

 

[ScottNomus]

It appears that you are haveing the same problem I am having with BE 7.0 on NT 4.0. My back up would start and run for about an hour and a half then the engine would stop.

After a solid week of searching I Erased the tapes and run the back it ran flawlessly.

Try erasing the tapes and try running the back up.

 

[Swan]

I have had the same problem with no luck. Even when I am using new, blank tapes, the job engine still periodically crashes on the average of 2 times a month. It is annoying to have to restart the machine only to find out that it will crash the next day. However, it only seems (if I remember correctly) to crash on incremental backups. It will chug along for about 1.5 hours and then Boom! It stops. Have you had any luck with your problem yet?

 

[srosado]

Ive had the same problem - job engine dies about twice a month, usually during normal backup, job has to be restarted and rescheduled...8.5 rev3572 NT4.0...good to see Im not the only one experiencing this....Any info would be great....

 

[Palindrome]

Ok,

I will update this thread when and if I find a resolution to this problem. Is everyone running a mixed environment(Novell and NT)? We also are using NDS for NT with multiple NIC cards in the backup server. I'd be curious to see what else we have in common. Any information you can post about your setup would greatly help. Thanks Guys!!!!

 

[Swan]

I'm running 2000 and 4.0 machines with BackupExec 8.5 rev. 3572 on a 2000 server with multiple NICs. It looks like the only thing that I haven't done is re-install BackupExec, but judging from postings, it doesn't seem like that would make much of a difference.

 

[srosado]

Our setup is pretty basic...Backup Exec (8.5 rev3572) runs on its own NT 4.0 server, no mixed environment, only 1 NIC.

 

[randyweis]

Ignoring for the moment the reason why this happens (and you can check Technotes for this), Win2K has a handy tool for this:
Go to the Service Properties, and have it restart the service if it fails. I have mine set for that for the first two failures, and a reboot after that. I had a spate of these troubles last summer, and it saved my chain of backup jobs.

 

[Palindrome]

I have done the restart feature in services with my Win2k server and still had the problems. Right now we are moving to setting up a dual boot machine with Win 4.0 and Win2K. The main backups and restores will be done in Win 4.0. We will boot to 2000 when we need to restore a 2000 server complete with the system state. Windows 4.0 has trouble restoring the System state to a 2000 server. Our problems are more than just the job engine dying. I have seen instablilty with just day to day operations (Aborting jobs, scheduling... etc). It may be corrpution or just the upgrade to 8.6 with using the catalogs and jobs created under the Windows 4.0 operating system. It seems that when we put in a fresh install of 2000 and BE 8.6 plus the old information our problems got worst. I would accept the jobs failing twice a month if my installation would stabalize. I will update this post as more information becomes available. I cannot remember the Job engine failing under Win 4.0 . Thanks to everyone for posting their info.

 

[drivinmecrazy]

I was having the same problem with one of my backup servers.
I fixed it by removing the tape device driver in the control panel and use on of veritas's drivers for the device. To use their drivers to the following:

** Stop all BE Services.
** Navigate to "Program files\veritas\Backup Exec\NT" folder.
** Run tapeinst.exe
** Restart the system.

That's what I did and I has been working great ever since. Good luck to all and may the force be with you~

 

[Palindrome]

Ok,

I'll try your suggestion in the meantime. Thanks for the info. Still working on building a dual boot server anyhow.

 

[Palindrome]

Just an update. I'm still working on rebuilding the original backup server. I'm having some problems with the secondary backup server. We'll keep you posted.

 

[fgaston]

I'm having same problem, but only when backing up across a 2nd domain in W2K to an Exchange Server. Seems to be only when I try to backup individual mailboxes. Has anyone else tied to Exchange or multiple domains as possible issues?

 

[tkriner]

Finally resolved this issue last night with help from Veritas 3rd level support. We made many tweeks but I believe the ultimate resolution was: 1. Do manual uninstall of BE 2. Uninstall Norton AV 3. Reboot 4. Reapply Win2K SP2 5. Reboot 6. Reapply MDAC 2.6 SP1 7. Reboot 8. Reinstall BE (8.6 3878).

I posted specific directions on this process at

http://www.tkriner.com/BEJobEngineIssue.htm.

Hope it helps tom@tkriner.com