Robotic library hardware error

[iainwatt]

Hello people,

I get the following error from time to time in veritas :

Backup Exec Alert: Device Error
(Server: "NTR105") Robotic library hardware error.

The robotic library has reported a general hardware error condition. Manual intervention, calibration, etc., may be required. This may be a device related hardware problem, or it may be some other hardware problem (i.e. SCSI card/bus etc.). The library and drive states have been set to offline. Please attend to this condition.


Now I understand that this is the hardware reporting an error to veritas. But when I disable the device in veritas and re-enable it straight away the device shows back as on-line and works fine until X amount of days later when it throws this error again. There is no set time between the device pausing could be once every other day or then work for a week!

What I would like to know is, if there is away for veritas to ignore this and not set the device to offline, as I'm sure the backup would carry on as there never seems to be a problem with it!

I've been in contact with HP and ran the HP tape tool on the drive and library but never comes back with a fault.

Any ideas or suggestions?

 

[silentsam33]

Is this the 15 tape library from Compaq/HP? We have had a number of issues with this robot library, all hardware related.
Have you ever had a problem with the tape library marking media as bad, even brand new media? We have had the TL replaced twice under warranty.

 

[silentsam33]

Forgot to mention, our tape library is a Compaq DLT 7000 attached to a ML 370.

 

[iainwatt]

Sorry for the slow reply.

It's the ssl1016, it's from HP and is a 16 tape with a Ultrium LTO 2 drive.

We have a HP engineer coming out today. The problem is that the unit never seems to report a problem when you run it's own diags!

We'll have to wait and see what Mr HP has to say. But I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one.

And yes veritas reporting even new tapes with new labels(barcard) as bad media, always seem to be in the same slots!

 

[iainwatt]

Forgot to add in last post, I now know when the device will become off line!!

This happens when it needs to eject the tape. We have a number of backup jobs running on the server, and if they are below 400gig, the capacity of the tape, the jobs will run and fail when the tape has to come out. If the jobs go over two tapes the backup jobs start and then, again, as soon as the device needs to eject the job gets paused because the device reports the error and veritas switches it to off line!

 

[silentsam33]

I have heard there is sometimes trouble using the Barcode option. We do not use it, but we do label our tapes. I have not seen the issue with Tape ejections or moving from 1 tape slot to another. Ours will just stop backing up and throws out an error. Usually all the outside lights start blinking at the same time.
We also have issues with the DLT 40/80 internal single tapes drives. I think we have replaced under warranty about 6-7 units over the past 2 years.

 

[iainwatt]

I think the tape drive itself is ok, as this never goes off line whent he robotic library reports the problem. The Ultrium 2 drives are pretty good, a lot better than DLT.