PLEASE HELP!!!!!!! LOSING MY MIND 2

[gsz11]

I am having all kinds of problems with my backups ever since the first day I started with this. I have gotten at least 5 different errors, and I have yet to have a successful backup. Errors such as:

W6906 The operation has stopped because an error has occurred while reading or writing data which the drive cannot correct.

E6915 The tape is from a faulty batch or the tape drive is faulty:

E3855 Unable to position media. (EC=unrecoverable data Error)

W3828 Unable to find this media or a blank media

E8004 Media manually inserted in drive

E8015 Critical Error, no free slot available

E6500 Client connect to tape failed

C3703 Unable to open media(EC Error Tape not Found)

W6909 The operation has stopped because an error has occurred while reading or writing data which the drive cannot correct.

E6300 Windows NT ScSI PORT error[ABSL :1010 CMD :A5h]

W6942 There is a problem with the library mechanism

E8022 Failed to format media in slot:3

Failed to format media in slot:4

As you can see I have gotten just about every error possible and am getting very frustrated. I have a Dell 120t autoloader with 7 tapes. The autoloader is new. The Any help would be appreciated.

 

[ArcservePro]

I have seen this many times in the past. The problem is a relatively simple one to correct. There is a breakdown in the SCSI communications from the application to the library/drives. There are several things that can cause this.

1. Incorrect or outdated driver for the SCSI HBA. Check the manufacturer site for your SCSI HBA for the latest driver.

2. Make sure that the library,drive and SCSI HBA are all on the CA certified device list and that you have installed all the patches for ARcserve. Make sure the firmware on your library and drives matches or is greater than required by the certified device list.

3. There is a faulty cable scheme. Remember that a tape library contains several feet of SCSI cable. This combined with a long cable to the computer can result in a cable length which approaches or exceeds the maximum. This issue is more predominant with Single-ended SCSI as opposed to Differential SCSI.
Make sure you use a high-quality cable from a name -brand manufacturer. ie. AMP, Compaq, IBM, etc.. Generic SCSI cables exhibit poor electrical performance - check

http://www.scsipro.com

for more info on this.

4. A multi-drive library may have been configured incorrectly. You have a single drive library, but if you also had a standalone tape drive, it's possible that this drive was assigned to the library in place of the actual library drive. Check and verify all SCSI ID assignments in COntrol Panel, in Arcserve and on the device.

5. A few tips. Before you shutdown Arcserve, make sure that tapes are ejected from the drives and that they reside in their home slot. Also make sure that no tapes exist in the Import/Export slot if one exists.

6. Make sure that the tape library is not sharing a SCSI bus with a system hard drive.

7. Make sure the Windows driver for the library and tape drives is not loaded. Arcserve uses it's own drivers.

8. Check the Windows applet for SCSI devices and make sure that what you see there matches your hardware

9. Finally, if these steps do not solve the problem, turn on the tape engine debug log facility and observe the stream of SCSI commands issued during ARcserve startup. This can be written to a file for review. You can identify specific device commands which fail, and isolate the problem further.

The errors from your system seem to be coming from all devices, leading me to believe the problem is with the driver, cable, HBA or software configuration.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you make out.

Chris.horvath@truedatasan.com Chris Horvath - True Data Storage Networks Inc. - New York City
Premier CA VAR, Arcserve Training Center, StorageTek Dealer
arcserve_pro@yahoo.com

 

[GaryDub]

I agree that it could be a SCSI problem, but I didn't see anyone mention that it could be incorrectly terminated. Check to see that someone didn't forget to put the terminator on/back on.

 

[emerald]

I was browsing through the different threads, hoping to find one that would provide an answer to the problems that I currently have with AS 6.61 NT 4.0. The "I´m losing my mind" cry caught my attention, because that is exactly how I felt. To my surprise the error messages reported by Gsz11 are 95% similar to the ones I´m experiencing. It´s good to know I´m not alone...

I tried Chris H.`s tips, but up till now, there hasn´t been any change for the better.

Strangely enough, my problems seem to have started after we installed SP 6a on our 7 backupservers (each with a separate autoloader, Qualstar 68120, DLT 8000).
What I found particularly strange is that it seems that my tape drives are broken or malfunctioning anyway, because when I replace them, my library functions fine for a while. Until the next one breaks down. In the past it turned out once that a Tape drive powersupply was broken, which caused the tape drives to break down.
Anyway, the error messages as listed by gzs11 are still appearing, so I am very curious if anybody has any more to say on the subject.

 

[ArcservePro]

Emerald,
More than likely your problem is hardware related. Perform the usual tests to rule out software ie. scsi driver, maybe rev. back the sp6a as a test.

For hardware problems, the best approach is to trap the errors in the Arcserve tape engine debug log. Turn it on in the arcserve server admin/tape engine config. You may also increase the level of messages using the debug(sp?) key under local machine/software/computerassoc/arcserve/base/tapeengine. This key is changed each time you enable the debug log under server admin. Try increasing the key value by one to see extended SCSI info.
Once you've trapped the error in tape.log open a support call with the tape drive manufacturer and explain your issues. The Arcserve software reports tape drive error codes which are returned from the device. Devices that return error codes are usually faulty. The manufacturer will surely suspect SCSI cabling and termination as possibles causes. Be prepared to discuss the cabling including manufacturer, length, age, condition, etc. Likewise for the terminator. One of my favorite sites for detailed info on SCSI cabling is

http://www.scsipro.com

. Check what they say about their SCSI cables and terminators and see if yours are comparable.

If your devices are issuing errors, the manufacturer must explain this. Given the history with power supply failures, etc. I would not accept anything but a thorough explanation from the manufacturer. When calling the manufacturer, arm yourself with the Certified Device List from CA's support website and verify that the library model and tape drives are updated with the correct firmware levels.

Call us if you need more help identifying these types of issues.

Chris Horvath (212) 352-1780
Chris Horvath - True Data Storage Networks Inc. - New York City
Premier CA VAR, Arcserve Training Center, StorageTek Dealer
arcserve_pro@yahoo.com

 

[jimpames]

http://support.ca.com/Download/patches/asitnt/LO99723.html

Try this new patch...

Make a COPY of your ARCSERVE directory with all Arcserve services STOPPED before you put this on, so you can revert if necessary... Jim P. Ames

http://www.jimpames.com

jimpames@hotmail.com

 

[emerald]

Hi Jim,
Thanks for the idea, but according to the download page, the patch only applies to ArcServe 2000 and I have AS 6.61...

 

[jimpames]

Yes, if you post your Arcserve version and patch level we can make better progress.

It would also be helpful to know your SCSI driver version and adapter model.

Which firmware level is your tape device at?

Which OS version and patch level?

Read the FAQ on this site for Arcserve NT AVOIDING TROUBLE. Jim P. Ames

http://www.jimpames.com

jimpames@hotmail.com

 

[emerald]

I really hope you´re not going to bite my head off now, but I already posted my ArcServe Version and NT patch level (6a) etc. on 22nd August (ArcServe 6.61, SP2a). Build is 834. Never mind. I am very grateful you are trying to help me out here at all. I already read all your FAQs, including the one you about avoiding trouble with Arcserve.

Firmware Qualstar Library: 2.12
Tape drive firmware: 0119
SCSI card: aic 78xx
driver: Adaptec AHA-294x/394x and PCI SCSI 78xx

Thanks very much for any further help.

 

[jimpames]

Emerald,
On 22 Aug you posted your Arcserve version but no service pack info or patch info for Arcserve - you posted that today. You have not posted your SCSI driver version, or Specific Adaptec card model (2940, 2944, etc.)

From

http://support.ca.com/techbases/asnt/arcnt66.html

Qualstar TLS 6xxx series 126e, firmware 1.30 drives 1 - 8 slots 10 - 240

This appears to be the only Qualstar 6XXX TESTED and CERTIFIED to be supported by your release of Arcserve.

Carefully check your SCSI driver VERSION. Find the AIC78xx.sys file in %systemroot%\system32\drivers, look at the date on it - did the service pack 6a overwrite your GOOD SCSI driver with an OLD SCSI driver? My driver is dated 9/16/99, but I may have a different card than you.

Let me know...


Jim P. Ames

http://www.jimpames.com

jimpames@hotmail.com

 

[emerald]

According to the Qualstar representative, any firmware higher than 1.30 should be functioning with ArcServe, too. I hope he is right..

As to the driver: the Service pack seems to have left my driver alone: the create date and modify date are both dated 2000, way before anybody even heard of SP2a here. Strangely enough, the modify date is 26 January 2000 and the create date is 20 June 2000... Don´t know if the clock was set at the wrong time then.

The SCSI driver version is 2.32 (4.0.1460). I can´t find any statement about a date, apart from the Copyright by Adaptec, 1999.

I have just downloaded the latest 2944 UW HVD Scsi driver from Adaptec. Would it be advisable to try this driver out?

Info from Adaptec: Filename: 7800_fms303_disk1.exe
Date: 08/20/01)

Thanks for your help.

 

[Guest_imported]

Hi Emerald,

How you getting on with this issue.

I have got a HP Netserver E50 coming up with E6300 error using Arcserve (ASO 6.61). It is running NT 4.0 server SP6a. Tape drive is HP SureStore DAT24i.

NT backup works fine. Tried Arcserve 2000 and it still does the same. Ran HP TapeAsssure Diags and it passed all the tests.

Plse let me know if you managed to solve your issue.

Regards,
Satish

san@gen-i.co.nz

 

[emerald]

Hi Satish,

I´m still groping in the dark. This weekend, I had to get my 7 Backup Servers (each with their own Qualstar 68120 or 6460 Library) to create a Full Backup. I made sure that I had ONLY new tapes (in the past I was not quite sure if used tapes that had to be fully erased and formatted might cause trouble). I gave the Library and Server a clean slate by rebooting them (firstly, I stopped the AS Tape Engine, then I rebooted the library, waited till it had come back online and scanned its inventory, then I rebooted the server, checked if its tape drives were recognised during the boot process and restarted the AS Tape Engine).
I did this, because in the recent past a lot of my recurring problems could be temporarily solved by rebooting the library and the server. Especially the error "Cannot connect to tape. Unrecoverable data error" seemed to disappear after a reboot, for a short while at least.
When I checked up on my backup jobs on Sunday, I was not even disappointed anymore to find out that two of my Jobs (all on different servers) had a problem.
The first problem was "cannot connect to tape. Unrecoverable data error". The second complained "cannot write to media. Unrecoverable data error. Tape cleaning alert".
The first problem was more or less solved by simply restarting the job. ( I have three tape drives and three backup jobs on this server that run simultaneously). This time the job took another tape drive and happily performed its backup.

In the past I used to conclude from this that my tape drive was broken. I then replaced it with a fully functioning or even new tape drive and it worked again. The broken tape drive did not work in another library either. Strangely enough, our supplier claims that the tape drives I sent in are not malfunctioning at all! Assuming that this information is correct, I find that extremely odd. I tested the library, which was spitting out SCSI errors (E6300, by taking out the -allegedly- faulty tape drive. Then everything was fine again. The SCSI errors stopped, the merge or backup jobs that the library had a problem with, ran smoothly all of a sudden. That is why I concluded there was a problem with the tape drive.
To make things even more complicated: I made sure that the library which had this problem got three brandnew tapedrives. As long as it was running two drives, everything was fine. When I finally got my third new drive delivered, I was unpleasantly surprised by the fact that the library did not want to come back up again after I had shoved it in. One of the carroussels did not turn any more, so the Inventory Scan could not be done properly and the whole library hang.
Great. That sounded more like an electricity circuit problem. I had the supplier come over to check things out and finally we found out that one of the tape drive power supplies was broken. (A big clue we got for free was that the main fuse of the library blew up after the technician started to work on the library..)That also accounted for my tape drives getting themselves blown up all the time.
I was happy enough with this diagnosis, the power supply was changed, the new tape drive installed and everything worked just great for an entire week.
Then the whole show started all over again.
By the way, this is not the first power supply to break down. I had the same thing in another library one month earlier. The oldest libraries that I have are 1 year old. Every single one is still in the guarantee period....


Anyway, problem two was "solved" by cleaning all my tapedrives and restarting the job.

I do know tape drives need cleaning on a regular basis, but I get the impression that my libraries are overdoing it a bit. Most of the times when I check on my libraries (once every day) I find that at least one "please clean tape drive" light is on. This means that it has happened that I had to clean the same tape drive three days in a row. Now I do use my libraries quite a bit, but I don´t use them 24 hours a day. More like 16 hours a day. Having to clean the same tape drive every 16 hours seems a bit exaggerated to me...

Oh well, the story continues, I´m afraid.

The next thing I´m going to try is to use a different library (different brand I mean). Just to see if it is plainly Qualstar or something in the firmware that is not ok, or if it is not a library problem at all.

 

[wrgpaul]

Having read many articles on this forum, the common denominator doesn't appear to be a specific hardware device, but Arcserve. It seems insane swapping out hardware, cleaning tapes every day, inserting brand new tapes (which are expensive), all to no avail.
Why is it that the same library will work 100% with different software, yet everyone keeps looking in the wrong direction, i.e. not at Arcserve. This application seems to me, flawed beyond belief. It is very user unfriendly and doesn't clearly communicate errors that it throws up. (a good example is when media expires, it doesn't warn you when you insert the tape, it just says 'cannot find blank media'. Wouldn't a bit more of a prompt be useful, after all it is designed to be automated, but having read countless articles lots of us are spending countless days and hours on this problem. Time to dump the software and get something that is intelligent. As for restoring files, I won't even go there, that could be a whole new forum and take up even more times. This has to be the most ineffective back up system I have come accross. It is okay WHEN it works............when it doesn't...well you know the rest!! Paul Wright
Senior IT Consultant
Worthing

 

[betageek]

What a relief, I'm not the only one losing my mind

I have been having the same exact problem for over a year now. Same error exact messages, same repeating problems. This is my environment:

Exabyte EZ17 tape library with Mammoth II drive
150M Mammoth Tape
Running Win2000 Server
Server is a Compaq Proliant 1600R

I was originally running ArcServeIT, converted to Win2k and used the Win2k patch for ArcServeIT. CA then withdrew all support for the patch leaving me stranded (anyone else go through that nightmare?). I was then forced to upgrade to ArcServe2000.

This problem has been happening over and over and over for the past year. I am already on my 3rd replacement Exabyte tape drive, and I am in need of a 4th. We have had a 100% turnover in tapes (i.e. every tape eventaully goes bad after a number of uses).

We convice Exabyte to send us a new drive, even though they are very incredulous that there is anything wrong with it. We destroy all the tapes we can and start fresh. Back-ups will work for a month or two and then the same battle, over and over. It is a nightmare. Back-ups start failing. ArcServe can no longer read media. Tapes stop ejecting... OVER AND OVER!

I really don't know what to do at this point. There is no way that Exabyte will send me another drive. Somnething is killing these drives and destroying the tapes. (I have used different servers in the past out of desperation). I couldn't have imagined it in the past, but I'm starting to beleive that the problem is with CA. I don't know what else could be doing this

 

[Hopefull]

hi gsz11!

I'm from germany, and I have the E6300 SCSI-Error, too.I use Arcserve2000 build 1042, without service packs, Adaptec AHA-2940U2W, and a Tandberg Autoloader with a SLR60 Drive.I have change all the hardware(cables, Terminators, Autoloaders) but the problem is allready still there.
Have you solve your problems?

 

[Guest_imported]

Hi, I am currently running arcserve2000 advanced edition on NT4 server with sp6a. The arcserve is backing up 4 other servers over the network. This seems to be an intermittent problem, that it will be working fine for a while, then something will go wrong. Past week, all the backup jobs are getting an 'incomplete' status after the job ran. What I don't understand is that it has been working up until last week. There have not been ANY programs installed or removed, and this is a standalone backup server, it does not provide any other network function to the network. Where should I start troubleshoot??

I downloaded the sp2 that I found on CA's support site, is it recommended to install it?

thanks for any suggestions,

 

[Guest_imported]

oooops, in regards to previous post

Some detail info:
Arcserve 2k, Adv Edition, v7.0 build 1018
HP SureStore DLT autoloader (HP c6280-4000) with Quantum DLT4000 Drive, there are 6 slots in the autoloader,

adaptec 2940 driver in NT,

Please let me know if more info is needed,

 

[wrgpaul]

I generally find that looking through the job log at the end of the back ups you can find files (red alerts) that could not be accessed for whatever reason. If a system is still running, (i.e. a server) then it is more than viable to suggest that a file couldn't be accessed if still in use.

Have you changed anything that could confirm this scenario?
Paul Wright
IT Consultant
Logicom IT Ltd

 

[rebhaller]

I also had several issues with that and started comparing other backup solutions and found these problems were not issues with Backup Exec by VERITAS.