Problem with GFS, Media Pool and Blank Tape Serial Numbers

[1skywalker1]

We recently took two different arcserve setups and combined them onto one system. In the process we changed from a 5-day weekly back to GFS.

When I first started off the weekly set seemed to be using the wrong serial numbers. It was using 1800000's instead of 1900000's. After looking around a bit I realized the rotation scheme picked was "5 day weekly full backup" instead of "5 day weekly full backup, with GFS enabled". I had actually setup GFS manually instead of selecting the one with it enabled. I'm not sure if that caused the problem, but when I changed it to "with GFS enabled" it updated the serial number range for the weekly pool.

Now it says base nmber 1900000, next serial number 200000... the catch is that the last two backups I've done have created tapes with blank serial numbers! Under the activity log it says "Serial Number.... N/A". Any ideas?

I'm thinking I'll probably have to just delete the media pool completely and start over though i've already labed about 10 tapes. What's the best way of going about completely deleting a media pool?

Thanks.

 

[davidmichel]

I say follow your own advice and start over with the media pool and job.

It would also be a good time to check for updates.

 

[1skywalker1]

Well, I tried that with no luck.

I created a completely new media pool but I'm still getting no serial number at all. The Job Status shows Serial Number: N/A.

Also something I strange I noticed... when I put in a tape from a media pool that has been deleted, the media pool somehow reapears! Is there a way to truly delete a media pool?

The new media pool I created seemed to get information from the old pool, using the same serial number bases and such.

Any ideas?

 

[1skywalker1]

Trying one more time... has anyone run into this before? Do I need to stop the engine and delete something from the registry in order to completely delete a media pool?

Thanks for any help you can give.

 

[Cyklops]

when you want to delete a Media Pool, first remove all of the Media from the existing pool's Save and Scratch Sets, then delete the pool.
When you want to get rid of the serial numbers: use the Quick Erase plus method, this will leave a <Blank Media> with no serial number. This serial number is set by arcserve as an alternative for Barcode labels.

regards

 

[slixtreme]

As well as the other recommendations posted this may also be of benefit.

When our various flavours of arcserve / brightstor have caused media pool related problems I have initialised the astape and asmedia databases from within asadmin. once this has been done you will be able to start from scratch and let the backup job create the GFS media pools.

 

[1skywalker1]

Cyklops: Thank you so much, that makes perfect sense. I will do that in the future.

slixtreme: this sounds exactly like what we want to do! This would save us a lot of time so we don't have to go and reinstall the whole thing. The only problem is that "Initialize Database..." is a greyed-out option. Even with the databases stopped, I can't select that option from the "Operation" menu in the BrightStore ARCserve Backup Server Admin. We're using r11.5

Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks again!

 

[Cyklops]

The option "Initialize Database..." greyed out means that you are using MicroSoft SQL server as your ARCserve database.
Initializing can only be done with the default VLDB database.

I'm not sure if it is still possible to just partly initialise the SQL database ? Anyone else ??

regards

 

[vschumpy]

If initialize db is greyed out, then it can also be that the db engine is not started or is hung up.

You can check what type of db you're using by looking at the activity log - each time the db engine is started it will print the type of db being used. (either SQL or VLDB).

I can't be 100% sure as I haven't played with ARCserve in nearly a year now, but I think you are correct Cyklops, I don't think you can overwrite any tables individually when using SQL as the db. If having problems with an SQL db backend it would be worthwhile setting up an SQL Maint job to see if that clears the problem out:

http://supportconnect.ca.com/sc/redir.jsp?reqPage=search&searchID=TEC353603

You can always try running setupsql and selecting custom setup and see if it will let you overwrite specified tables instead of them all. Or you could try manually dropping the table in SQL, but I'm pretty sure this will just hose it in the long term and will probably screw up the referential integrity at best.

 

[1skywalker1]

We're not using a SQL database... everything appears to be in a DATABASE folder. Any other ideas as to why this option would be greyed out?

It looks like we're leaning back towards a complete reinstall :-(

Thanks again.

 

[1skywalker1]

hold the phone...

I just went back to the server admin window and now initialize database is an option!

I'm not sure if it just had to read in the whole database before it became an option or what. I was also running the BrightStor diagnostic information wizard in the background... maybe that did something.

Well, I'm going to give it a shot. Worse case, I'll just reinstall.

Thanks again!

 

[TwdCouncil]

Error Media in device group XXX is not in the scratch set of pool xxx_dly
Please mount one of the following media in device group xxx.
Have BrightStor Arcserve version 11 with SAN option 1 primary and 4 distributed servers. The other day I had to move the Primary SAN server option to a new server as our server is going back because we lease them for 3 years. Did the following.
From new server Installed all software including san and tape options.
Opened SAN option and removed distributed servers, then primary. Added new primary and then added distributed servers to this from new server.
Ran backups that night OK except that it asks for a new tape on each distributed server backup.
Tried stopping/starting tape engine on distributed servers. Message said disconnected and reconnected to primary and was pointing to the new primary not the old. This did not work. Should I redo the whole tape library configuration from the new Primary server. The SAN option guide only talks about if the primary goes down not if you have a new server for this.

 

[TwdCouncil]

sorry posted this in the wrong place disregard it.