Introduction:
Starting with NetBackup 6.5, various backup types introduced the idea of granular recovery - for example, SharePoint and Exchange.  As an unintended consequence of adding this functionality, a defect was unknowingly introduced in bpbkar.  This can cause backups to hang or complete prematurely if a directory is encountered which contains the substring "_Granular_" (not including the quotation marks) in its name; however, the backup exits with a status code 0, successful.

What is Affected:
NetBackup 6.5GA through 6.5.3.1 Windows clients are affected.

File systems containing a directory with the exact substring "_Granular_" will experience this issue.  For example, the following file paths would cause this issue:
C:\Data\My_Granular_Files\
H:\Home\_Granular_\

When a file system backup job specifying a larger backup set (i.e. ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES - or in the examples above, C:\Data\ or H:\) encounters a directory containing the exact substring "_Granular_" the job immediately ends with a Status 0 when it attempts the backup of the problematic directory.  The contents of the directory will not be backed up; neither will any subsequent paths which would normally be encountered during the course of the job after this path.

If a policy's Backup Selections are amended to explicitly include the path of an affected directory as a Backup Selection, backup jobs of that policy will hang indefinitely and bpbkar32.exe on the client will consume 100% CPU utilization.  The job can be manually canceled in Activity Monitor (a status code 150 will be reported), but the bpbkar32.exe process will continue to run on the client until it is manually terminated.

Note: This substring must match exactly for this issue to be seen.  It is case sensitive - that is to say, paths containing the same substring except with a lowercase "g" or any other uppercase letters, would be backed up as expected without issue.  Likewise, backups of paths containing the substring "Granular" but not preceded and followed by an underscore ("_") will not be affected by this issue.  Some examples are shown below in the "Workaround" section.

How to Determine if Affected:
Completed backups which are much smaller than expected may be an indication of this issue.

A client's bpbkar logs can be enhanced to show path names during backups to reveal any problematic paths.  To accomplish this, set the General Logging level for the Windows Client to 2, using its Host Properties (Windows Client > Client Settings > Additional logging levels).  See Figure 1 below:
 

The bpbkar log folder (<install_path>\NetBackup\logs\bpbkar) must also have been created.

Examining the log will reveal a backup stops right after the directory in question's file path is encountered:
10:25:12.788 AM: [240.2312] <2> tar_backup_tfi::backup_startfile_state: TAR - Backup: C:\test\My_Granular_dirname
10:25:12.788 AM: [240.2312] <2> tar_backup_tfi::backup_startfile_state: TAR - writing file 0 'C:\test\My_Granular_dirname'
10:25:12.851 AM: [240.2312] <4> file_system_access::V_Cleanup: TRV - set times for file: C:\test\My_Granular_dirname
10:25:12.851 AM: [240.2312] <4> tar_backup_tfi::backup_finishfile_state: INF - catalog message: DIR - 252 1 2 35 16832 root root 0 1239636275 1239632408 1239632408 /C/test/My_Granular_dirname/
10:25:12.851 AM: [240.2312] <4> tar_backup::backup_add_last_entry_state: INF - catalog message: DFI - 0 0 7 23 292 user other 0 1239632408 1239632408 1239632408 /VRTS_IMAGE_SIZE_RECORD
...
10:25:12.882 AM: [240.2312] <2> tar_base::V_vTarMsgW: INF - EXIT STATUS 0: the requested operation was successfully completed

Additionally, performing a Windows "Find" for folder names containing the substring "_Granular_" may determine if the client could potentially be affected by this issue, if any results are returned.

Formal Resolution:
The formal resolution to this issue (Etrack 1593008) is included in the following release:
 

When NetBackup 6.5.4 is released, please visit the Related Documents section below, or visit the following link for download and readme information:  http://www.symantec.com/business/support/overview.jsp?pid=15143
Or subscribe to this article, as mentioned below, to receive an Email Notification when this article is updated in the future.

Workaround:
Renaming the folder so that it no longer contains the exact substring "_Granular_" will prevent this issue from occurring.  Because this is an issue involving case-sensitivity, there are many alternatives which may be acceptable without changing the meaning of the folder name.

Some examples of directories which would not experience this issue:
C:\Data\My_granular_Files\
H:\Home\Granular\
H:\Home\_Granular\
H:\Home\My_GranularFiles\
C:\Data\My_GRANULAR_Files\


Best Practices:
Symantec strongly recommends the following best practices:
 

1. Always perform a full backup prior to and after any changes to your environment.
 

2. Always make sure that your environment is running the latest version and patch level.
 

3. Perform periodic "test" restores.
 

4. Subscribe to technical articles.
 

 

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