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NetBackup 6.5.4 Error (96) with 8 empty tapes in the drive!

Updated: 22 May 2010 | 12 comments
bprentice's picture
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I am having severe trouble getting a netbackup master server to actually reliably work.

It's running 6.5.4 and seems to fail randomly with "unable to allocate new media for backup, storage unit has none available(96)"

I have nuked the policies and re-created - no fix. I have re-installed from scratch - nada. Long erase? Error (98) appears

EDIT : The tapes are all "Available", all in the requested backup volume pool, not assigned, etc, etc. Even when placed in "Scratch" they fail.

The only thing I can definitively point to is that NB is now inconsistently identifying AIT2 tapes as either 8mm or 8mm2. These are all the same tapes, some times from the exact same box, and all are labeled identically (I have confirmed this ALL have "SONY SDX2-50C 230m 64k AIT2" on them). The tapes that are failing to be ID'd correctly were being ID'd correctly before. New tapes either get ID'd as 8mm or 8mm2 seemingly randomly. If the only tapes available have been ID'd as 8mm then I definitely get a (96) regardless of the status of the tape.

Drive is a SONY.SDX-500V.000 8mm2

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J.Hinchcliffe's picture
08
Sep
2009
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check your barcode rules

verify that you do not have CONFLICTING barcode rules set up
Verify that it is set to bring the tapes in as you want them to be.

Once you have verified that.
Eject a tape that is not assigned.
delete the tape from NetBackup - so you can start fresh with it.

Inject the tape and then look at what type it came in as.
does the type of tape match your type of tape drive?

If not work on your barcode rules again.

I don't have to know how to spell....I work on Unix.
NetBackup 7.0.1 - AIX & Windows

bprentice's picture
09
Sep
2009
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Nope - just the one rule I set up.

Everything is labeled exactly as it should be.

bprentice's picture
09
Sep
2009
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Deleting the tape

and re-inventorying to find it again results in it still being identified as before (8mm if wrongly ID'ed as 8mm, or 8mm2 if as 8mm2 before)

Omar Villa's picture
08
Sep
2009
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Check with vmquery -m <media>

Check with vmquery -m <media> and bpimmedia and see if the tapes are assign in some place, it happens that the DB's get corrupted and they stop syncronizing the data, also check EMM with nbemmcmd for all the medias and search for any missmatch.

regards.

Omar A Villa

Netbackup Expert

These are my personal views and not those of the company I work for

Marek Kedzierski's picture
09
Sep
2009
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Check type of your drive and

Check type of your drive and type of your tapes.. It have to be the same.. hcart, hcart2, hcart3 etc.. If you have different type of drive and media in NB configuration you will have error 96. If you have this issue you can simply change type of drive or media in NB configuration.

bprentice's picture
09
Sep
2009
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That's the confusion point

Why would NetBackup all of a sudden start ID'ing tapes that are identically marked physically as two different types? These should all show as 8mm2, but NB is being arbitrary and ID'ing some of them as just 8mm.

Marianne van den Berg's picture
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Sep
2009
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Also check density of Storage

Also check density of Storage Unit - they ALL have to match (drive, media, storage unit).
If you're drive type is 8mm2, you're media and storage unit must all be 8mm2.
Like Judy said - check your Barcode Code rules.
Best to add a <DEFAULT> rule:

Barcode tag : <DEFAULT>
Media type : 8mm2
Volume Pool: Scratch

Please note that the barcode rule only applies to new tapes - if tapes are already added as 8mm, you will have to delete them and inventory again.

BTW - these NetBackup rules are perfectly reliable. It is possible to have more than one drive type and more than one media type in the robot. The densities separate the different types logically so that drives don't get damaged by loading incompatible media into them.

Supporting Storage Foundation and VCS on Unix and Windows as well as NetBackup on Unix and Windows.
Handy NBU links

Andy Welburn's picture
09
Sep
2009
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Something that Judy also mentioned on a previous post...

... the barcode rules only apply to the Admin Console that they are set on. If you run an inventory on different PCs then you could be applying different rules.

Just a thought.

Regards Andy

"It's not too late to panic ..."

bprentice's picture
09
Sep
2009
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Since this host is remote

I always run the NB admin console direct from the backup host - the reponse time is better and I don't have to worry about time outs :)

Stuart Green's picture
09
Sep
2009
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Also worth looking into the 

Also worth looking into the  device mappings file.

FOR WINDOWS
http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/328212.htm

FOR UNIX/Linux
http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/328211.htm

Tip: Get overview/document your NBU environment. Run 'nbsu' and review the output.

• If this provides help, please vote or mark appropriate solution.

bprentice's picture
09
Sep
2009
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Surprisingly you were close

I have gotten it to correctly ID the media typ again. How? I had to delete every last bit of the drive and robot configuration from NetBackup (JUST NetBackup, Windows was OK). After doing that I was able to delete and re-inventory the tapes which showed up as **GASP** 8mm2 now! I have restarted an existing job without having NetBackup immediately bin it with the 96 error like before. I'll post an update once the job completes (ggod or bad).

bprentice's picture
09
Sep
2009
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All of the outstanding backups have completed without error.

The problem was apparently entirely a result of NetBackup corrupting its own configuration for the drive and robot.