Tape Engine Fails

[rmv]

I'm running Arcserve 2000 SP4 on a w2k server w/SP4. This has been setup for some time now. Everything works fine. We had made no changes. Now everytime the scheduled backups runs the Tape engine will stop. Even if I create a new job and run that the Engine will stop.

Different errors appear in the logs. Sometimes when I mount the tapes I'll get scsi errors and all the tapes would not mount. Failed to inventory slots. I swapped out the tapes and had put in new ones and even had cleaned the drives.

Sometimes the backups would run and then asks for certain tapes to be in the drive but the requested tape is in the drive plus a blank one as well which it can use.

Somtimes I would get E3711 unable to open session. The media might be full. I know the media is not full since it's a new tape.

Have anyone experienced these errors randomly? Guess I'm looking for direction if it's a hardware or is it a software issue.

 

[Cyklops]

What tape hardware do you use (SCSi board, tape drive, tape library) ? Is the tape hardware connected to the RAID controller or on a separate SCSI controller ??

regards

 

[rmv]

We have 2 Compaq TL892DLX libraries with 2 drives each connected to an Ultra 3 SCSI controller.

I've removed the scsi controller completely and receeded it and now I'm no longer getting scsi errors but when the backup kicked off it did the backup to a tape and when it was time to use a second tape it couldn't find one when there were plenty of tapes it could have used which then caused the Tape Engine to fail again.

Any suggestions?

 

[Cyklops]

The TL892 series are commonly used with ARCserve so this should be no problem. What exact messages did you get. Normally, when a second tape cannot be found the job will eventually just fail but the tape engine should keep running.

 

[rmv]

Yeah I don't think it's a compatibility issue. I should have mentioned it but I've built this system 3 years ago and boy I've sure had my share of fun with database corruptions (Database Engine failing), bad drives,jobs that you can't cancel or stop (Job engine failing) and service packs updates that makes others don't work. But this is the first for me with the Tape Engine failing. I've had run through all the normal steps as well: Swapping out tapes, deleting all *.ch files, initializing the database and running through the device config and checking Groups.

What happens before the tape engine fails is the backup job would run and it'll be unable to find a tape and then the engine would turn red. I've even turned on the Tape debug log but maybe it's me. I don't see anything useful in it unless you know how to read a hex dump??? There is no exact error code. The job will fail with unable to find a tape and then the Engine will fail and it could be the scheduled jobs that run or newly created jobs would have the same result.

Don't know what to do at this point so I'm just looking for direction.

Thanks!

 

[JShawnT]

Do you have the Tape Log active? It's on the Job Status screen, near Job queue and Activity Log.
If this log gets too big, it can cause problems with backups jobs, all kind of errors messages, mostly E3719/E3712.
Just go to Manager, Server Admin, Admin, Configuration.
On the Tape Engine tab, pick Level = None. This will stop the Tape Log

Hope this help.

 

[davidmichel]

Could be corrupt install, consider doing an uninstall/reinstall.

Check the log directory for excptnxx.log. Usually when the Tape Engine stops on it's own it is due to a gpf. Check the exception address for each log, if it is the same then it is usually a problem in ARCserve, if the address is different then it is usually not. In that case check to see if the last file in the list is the same, if so check for multiple versions of that file and update them all to the latest.

Have there been any new updates installed? perhaps there was a problem with the update and it needs to be reinstalled.

 

[rmv]

Thank you all for your help. The problem has been resolved by editing the registry and deleting the Tape reg key. When the engines was restarted it recreates the key. Ran the device config and assigned back the drives and I was good as new.

 

[tdoc12]

Can someone lead me to this Reg Key for the tape engine that rmv was speaking of. I have a similar problem. I randomly get NT SCSI errors and also randomly the Tape Engine will shut down. Any help would be great. Thanks

 

[davidmichel]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ComputerAssociates\BrighStor ARCserve Backup\Base\TapeEngine\