Why my 'Media ID Generantion" did not always work in NetBackup.

I set up Media ID Generation - had it just the way I wanted it!
I even tested it and it worked GREAT.

Then when my NetBackup operator put in new tapes for the library - the ID's were wrong!!!

I checked again and I yes I had a rule for it.
And I tested it and it worked.

So they tried again - and again it failed.

So I did some digging and found out that the Media ID Generation is stored in the vm.conf of the SERVER YOU ARE RUNNING THE CONSOLE ON!!!

Well that was my problem.
I have the Remote Admin Console installed on my windows PC. It is there that I created the rule, so it ended up in MY vm.conf. This is why I could see it. I went to see where my operator runs it from. And sure enough NO RULE was entered. I even started the java console on my master and again NO RULE.

So just to be safe I added the rule on all 4 places we run a console from.
The Master, the 2 media servers, my pc, and the console we put on the NOM server.
Now the media ID gets created correctly when someone else put in new tapes.

We just have to make sure we use a known console to inject new tapes and not some newly installed console.
So now the rule to follow is to CHECK for the ID Rule BEFORE you inject brand new tapes.