Backup just stops

[weeean]

I have been trying to run a backup of a SCO unix box. However, whenever it get to a certain directory it just stops. It doens't fail or anything, but just sits on that directory doing nothing. The only reason I can think of is that the directory in question has almost 30,000 1KB files in and this is somehow causing the backup to freeze, as I know SCO has problems with either lots of files, or files over 2GB.

I am running BE 8.5 on windows NT. Does anyone have any ideas?

 

[phoenixdna]

I think I've had that prob and can't remember the solution.

This might not be your problem, but I've had problems backing up an HP-UX server when there was a corrupt file. If the backup fails on the same directory every time, then try skipping the directory in the backup and see if it completes successfully. There might be corrupt files. The solution to my problem was to find the bad file (it was an Oracle data file) and I had to delete it.

 

[weeean]

Unfortunately a corrupt file isn't the problem because it doesn't stop at the same place each time. It stops in a directory, but not at any file i.e. when clicking on progress BE gives the folder its currently in, but shows no file. Sometimes it will sucessfully backup this folder, but other times not. It also gets stuck on other folders with thousands of small files in (but with no pattern as to when it might get stuck, if at all).
I have also just noticed that this is an INC backup and nothing has been changed in the problematic directories for several weeks, so it shouldn't actually be backing up any of the files anyway.

 

[SQLBill]

Are there any error/alert messages?

Check the alert tab on Backup Exec.
Check the Windows Event Viewer Logs (application and system)
Can you right click on the active job and see if the job history shows any messages?

What size tapes are you using?
Are you allowing overwrite?

-SQLBill

 

[weeean]

Nope, there are no alert messages, event viewer shows nothing, the job hostory shows nothing out of the oridinary, yes I am allowing overwrite, yes there is plenty of space left on the tapes.
There is nothing to suggest anything is not working properly apart from the fact that the backup stops (by stop I mean the time keeps ticking, but no more data is written).

 

[SQLBill]

Do you have AOFO or OFO installed? (Advanced Open File Option or Open File Option).

If not, the file might be in use by someone and BE is waiting for it to be available for backup.

I don't think this would be the problem as I believe it would just skip the file, but I can't think of any other reason for this behavior.

-SQLBill

 

[weeean]

Its backing up a unix server where OFO isn't an option. And at 3 in the morning there is no one using the files.
I have just had another server on the same backup machine fail for the same reason, so I'm starting to suspect its something to do with the backup server, rather than the servers it is backing up. I've moved the problematic job onto another backup server. I'll let you know what happens on Monday

 

[SQLBill]

Is anything else running on the backup server? There could be intensive operations running that are tying up the CPU.

-SQLBill