One Tape, 3 sessions, Can't restore 3rd session

[orman]

(Arcserve 6.0 on NT 4.0 ver6a) No errors backing up to 1 tape. We can restore from the 1st session, but can't restore the 3rd (haven't tried the second session). Got error message E3841 "Unable to find session number". Running out of ideas- But do you have any? (Tried what we found on other postings.)
Thanks.

 

[chuber]

Can you browse the 3rd session? I mean, can you see the data that was backup up in it?

 

[orman]

Yes, have no trouble browsing. Can see all the folders and files.

 

[chuber]

Hm ... strange ...
Have you retried to restore the entire session?
Maybe you should merge it again ...

 

[orman]

Ok, just tried both. Could not restore entire session, and when we try to merge we get "Unable to find session number"...which doesn't seem to make a lot sense since we can see all the folders and files. ??? :-?

 

[chuber]

Try to do the merge again after you change the following registry entry (this will do the merge without using the catalog file):

add "HKLM\software\computerassociates\Brightstore ARCserve Backup\Base\Task\Merge"

below that add "DonotUseCatalogMerge" REG_DWORD 1

Hope this helps,
Conny

 

[orman]

We don't have exactly that key - We have "...\Arcserve\task". We don't have "...computerassociates\Brightstore..."
You think we should create "Merge", and then create the "DonotUse....." even though it's a different version than your?

 

[chuber]

Forgot, you said you were on version 6 ...
I would still give it a try, you can always remove the key if it does not work. It does nothing than bypass the catalog file and instead read the data from the tape.
Put it below task ...

Conny

 

[orman]

Very good try. We were able to do the merge. But still got the session error when trying to restore.
Our last effort before we go out and buy another brand of backup software will be to uninstall the antivirus and see what happens...Unless of course someone comes up with something else to try.

 

[chuber]

Well, then as a last resort, you might want to try to do a backup by media and bring back the entire tape ...

Otherwise I am sorry ... I have no more ideas ...
(By the way, I sit here and do disaster recovery of my backup server, too ...).

Still, good luck and a wonderful weekend, whenever it starts.

Conny

 

[orman]

We were lucky in that we found the problem before a critical situation hit.

You no doubt use Arcserve on your machines - If you had a choice, would you know what other backup software do you think you would want to try? Ever look into that?

Jim

 

[chuber]

I am already thinking of changing the software ... We are using the RAID option, because we need to sets of tapes ... that makes it not so easy to switch ... Not everyone has it ...

Conny

PS: For ARCserve 7.0 there is an patch from CA for your problem Did you see that?

 

[orman]

Yes, we are very hesitant to try it on 6.0 - But we will see.
My manager just told me he would prefer if we went with Arcserve 9.0 than try another brand of backup
-
Whoever knew backing up and restoring files would be so hard? You would think that the software makers would have this down by now.

 

[ajtmcse]

Arcserve 6.0 was never certified to work with any service pack above SP3. Support for Arcserve 6.0 was dropped by CA in June 2001.

The current version of Arcserve is 9.0. Arcserve 11.0 is the next major release scheduled for the end of this year / beginning of next year.

I strongly encourage you to give Arcserve 9 a try before looking at a different solution.

 

[orman]

Just to let you know what we decided to do for now....
We changed the backup so that there would be only 1 session - only backing up the 'important' files from one drive.
Will have to have create different backups for each of the other drives and the Arcserve dbase.
Not the best solution, that that is what we are going with for now.
Thanks to all!

 

[Stat1c]

just out of curosity, when you merge all three tapes into the database and then restore by session to a different location, rather than the original do u see the same error.. Are u doing this from a tape lib? and are u sure session 3 is on media (sequence) 3?

 

[orman]

All sessions are on one tape. We tried restoring to original location and different location, but had the same problem.

 

[davidmichel]

6.0, man that's old. Probably already have it but make sure SP3 is installed it brings it up to build 516.

Did this ever work? If not proceed

Try updating the firmware in the tape drive.

Here is a test to verify if it is what I suspect.

Run a few small test backups on a tape you just ran a quick erase on, they can be of just one small directory each. This is just to get 3 sessions on tape. Each job should have verify enabled.

If verify works for each session try restore of each session. Since the jobs are small this should take you very little time.

If the verify or restore works for each session take the tape out and reload it again. Now try the restore jobs again.

From what you have described above it can be expected that only session one will verify and restore, all other sessions will get the same unable to find session number failure. I've seen this before and it was caused by the tape drive firmware.

 

[orman]

It was working before. Tried again... Still session 1 is the only one that can be restored. We will work around that limitation - are main files will be backed up anyway.
FYI: The build on it is 510 - Will do some research on the tape drive, although that is less than a year old.

Thanks for the hints!

 

[chuber]

In this special case, it might even be that you have to downgrade the firmware due to ARCserve 6.0 ... Not always is the newest firmware the best ;-)