Backup goes straight to DONE status

[techer]

Hi All,

I am using Arcserve 2000 AE on a Win2000 Adv Server. When I schedule a Job to run the status of the job goes from "READY" straight to "DONE" without backing up anything.

There are NO messages logged in the Activity Log to indicate that the Job ran. I have also tried:
- Stopping the Job Engine
- Renaming the 0000001.qsd Folder to 0000001.qsd.OLD
- Restarting the Job Engine (new .qsd folder was created)
- Creating a new Scheduled backup job

This has the same results. The job changes its status to "Done" as soon as the scheduled execution time is reached.

I have also checked to see if a "dbclean.exe" process is running (as recommended in another post on this site) and it is not running. Scheduled database prune jobs still run correctly.

Thanks in advance.

Marty

 

[Cyklops]

How is your scheduling been setup ??
If you Open Device Group Configuration, how did you setup your hardware grouping ??

regards

 

[davidmichel]

Try some different kinds of jobs such as a Count and a Copy.
Lets see if it happens with all jobs or just backups.

 

[techer]

Thanks for the responses guys.

Cyklops:
I checked the Device Group Configuration and I only have one group called "Group0". Within that group, there are 20 entries, corresponding to the 20 slots in my tape library magazine. The "Available Devices" section is empty, signifying that there are no more devices that can be assigned to groups.

David:
The Count & Copy operations completed successfully. I watched the progress bar track the operations till they reached 100%. Then I checked the Activity Log and found entries logging the successful completion of both Jobs.

It appears this behaviour happens just with backups.

Thanks again,

Martin

 

[davidmichel]

So it looks like it is some how related to the Tape Engine end of things.

If you feel like it here is another test that will tell us if it is related more to the Tape Engine itself or the device setup. Open a command box and go to the ARCserve directory and then run simulate -ca. That will let you create a virtual tape device. Then try a backup to it. If it still fails you know it is not related to the library in any way.

 

[techer]

Hi David

I am a little apprehensive about running the simulate -ca utility, as it displays a notification advising "Use at own risk! Product not supported by CA".

Also, when I attempted to run it and chose 1 - Add Simulation Devices, it asked me for:

"Number of Boards to simulate?"

I am not sure what this means and am unable to find any info about the utility in ArcServe online help, at CA's website or user forums, or on the Internet in general.

Can you maybe explain what this utility does and how one uses it? It doesn't seem overly complex, but I don't want to take any guesses with the options available.

Thanks again.

Martin

 

[davidmichel]

simulate replaces the current tape engine device identification layer, so all it sees is the simulated device. Pick how many SCSI controllers you want and how many drives and if you want a library, then it creats them. In your case you only need one board and one tape drive. When finish testing go back and use simulate remove. You will not find any data on the utility because it is unsupported. It is a support diagnostic tool that and that's all. It can be usefull in troubleshooting throughput problems, as well as problems like this. Use at your own risk because if someone comes back complaining they can't restore from a simulated backup too bad, and believe me some people are out of it enough to try.

So use or not it's up to you.

 

[techer]

Thanks again David,

I went through the process and created the simulated tape drive. I then created a small job (one folder, registry, system state - from local server) and submitted it.

The behaviour was the same. The job immediately switched status from Ready to Done (with the red tick) and there was no entry in the Activity Log to indicate the execution of the job.

Regards,

Martin

 

[davidmichel]

So it is not related in any way to the tape device.

Have you thought about a reinstallation?
or
Go back to the real tape device and put both the Job and Tape Engines into debug and lets see what shows up in the logs.

 

[techer]

Hi David,

I decided to take the server down completely (outside business hours) - as I figured maybe a driver could be in some kind of suspended state. We established that it was not the hardware, from the testing you recommended, and I doubted it would be the tape engine, as I had stopped and restarted this numerous times without issue.

Anyway, after rebooting the system, the backup job itself now operates properly. Strangely though, I have found in the device manager (under Other Devices), what appears to be my backup drive (it's an AIT drive):
- Compaq SDX-500C SCSI Sequential Device

Needless to say, I am glad that the backup is now running. I will investigate this driver issue as another matter (may just require a reinstallation of the driver).

Thanks again for your help. It has been much appreciated!

Regards,

Martin

 

[davidmichel]

You do not want the OS tape device driver loaded. See
Which Driver Should I Use? faq478-3987
for details.

 

[techer]

Wow thanks David. That FAQ article explains alot. This may have been the cause of the behaviour experienced at the start of this thread. I sometimes get SCSI port errors on my jobs, which may also be related to conflicts between the Tape Engine and the system drivers. While the backup job usually recovers from these errors and resumes, it's still something we would prefer not to encounter.

I will disable the driver under "Other Devices" just to be on the safe side and hopefully see some positive results in the performance of our jobs.

Thanks again,

Martin