BE 9.0 Pre-processing OFO issues

[Stebone]

Having pre-processing issues when using the "Advanced Open File Option" with Backup Exec 9.0. It seems to lockup with no errors. I have two other customers having the same issues. Has anyone found a workaround? I think Veritas is aware of the problem and they recommend reinstalling 8.6 until a solution is released. Customers who never had 8.6, this posses a problem.

 

[Fuubar]

Was 9.0 an upgrade?

-Tools|Wizards|Open File Option Wizard; make sure you don't have crazy numbers for initial size and max size of the OFO static volume. With 9.0, these stats are in %, not in Mb. In my case, the #'s for these fields migrated over for some reason so I had 250 and 5000 for these fields. It should be something like 50% and 80%.

 

[dogmata]

Not sure what you mean exactly by "Pre-processing issues" but if its "hanging" in pre-processing for a while this is perfectly normal behaviour. Its basically using a filter driver and requires a certain amount of minimum quiet time (5 secs by default). This is given as it can take up tp 5 secs for any changes made by a process/user to "filter down" and be captured by the filter driver. Depending on the size of the volumes being snapped and how many files are open it can take 10-20 mins. If you run the job during the day for example there would be more activity ie changes thus the filterdriver has to wait until it gets its 5 secs in order to be able to snap the volumes

Hope this helps

 

[Stebone]

Dogmata,

I know all about static volumes and the time needed to stabilize. It shoudn't take over 3 hours to backup a 1K file that is open. That's what I've been experimenting with. Veritas says to remove any Anti-virus software running on that server. Are they crazy, obviously they don't live in the real world. I can see how that can affect stabilization, but that's poor design. What server shouldn't be running AV software. It's funny how 8.6 worked fine with AV software loaded. Any other ideas.

 

[LRM]

Stebone, We use BE 9.0 to backup about 30 servers and had this same problem, but resolved it. Our first two jobs of the night would hang in a Pre-Processing status for the entire night. Trying to cancel the job would only put it in a Cancel Pending state.
This is the steps we took after we successfuly ended all jobs:

First we tried editing the job and chose Selections. Then when we navigated to the server and double-clicked it the hourglass would hang. (End task was the only way we could end it).

We re-ran the Remote Agent install like we did when the job was first setup. But the hourglass would still hang when trying to edit the job.

With the hourglass still hanging we went to the server in question and stopped and restarted the Remote Agent. In both instances we had to use the Kill command to end the beremote.exe process in order to stop the Remote Agent service.

Once the Remote Agent service was restarted the hourglass went away and we then were able to see the drives.

Hope this helps.

LRM

 

[Qdog]

-Configure initial AOFO static volume size to 5% and max to 80%.
-Configure a pre/post job command w/batch files to stop and then start the AV software.
-If rules at your IT dept. dictate that AV software cannot be stopped, configure the AV software to NOT scan .TMP files. If it anvitirus live-scan tries to scan the active AOFO _BEVspCacheFile00_.TMP file created during the OFO backup, it will lock everything up.

-I am a contractor. For all my clients, I ask that they run non-OFO backups first to see what types of files are skipped. If they just have temp files skipped or database files that OFO could never get a lock on anyway, I persuade them to NOT use OFO. Obviously, a file server is the perfect candidate for OFO as users will leave Word, Outlook, etc open. I suggest you do the same. You also do not want to ever select Exchange database files to be backed up with OFO. Deselect the \mdbdata folder.

Good luck!