Write Errors with fbackup to Ultrium 230 Tape Drive

[Jeanine Kone]

I am using fbackup from the command line to do full backups to an SureStore Ultrium 230 tape drive. I have an itermittent problem (about 50% of the time) where I get a write error during the backup and it is unable to complete. It is usually on the same file (my 36 Gig oralce export file).

I am working with tech support, but so far don't have a solution. Has anyone else experienced similar problems?

[Victor_5]

What is your command and what is the error message?

[Paul R. Dittrich]

My troubleshooting process for this problem would go something like this:
1. Run a cleaning cartridge through the drive
2. Try a brand-new tape cartridge
3. Try a known-good SCSI cable
4. Substitute a different tape drive

After that, you're probably looking at a software problem.

[Jeanine Kone]

The actual backup command I am using is:
"/usr/sbin/fbackup -0 -i / -v -f /dev/rmt/0m"

The actual error is:
"fbackup(3013): WRITE ERROR while writing data record, at media record nnn"

This is happening on more than one drive (on two different machines). Hardware support has been out to look at the drive and did not see anything wrong. They are going to try swapping the drive today, but since I have the problem on more than one unit, they really don't think hardware is the problem. I will also note that these are brand new machines.

I have tried cleaning the drive and using different tapes. The part that makes it so hard to diagnose is that it works sometimes and not others. I have not been able to find any sort of common denominator for the ones that fail (or succeed).

Software support has also been involved - I have all the suggested patches applied. The fact that it is sporadic is making them resisitant to the idea that it is a software problem.

Thanks.

[Aziz Zouagui]

Well, my problem with the Ultrium 230 tape drive, is that I can fabckup to it fine, but when I run frecover to view the contents of the tape, I get this error:

frecover(2114): read error from input device (I/O error)
8800 Memory fault(coredump)

Has anyone figured out what the problem is this tape drive ?

I can't beleive HP sells and manufactures a tape drive that doesn't work with their OS.

Any help, would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

aziz@btg.com

[Michael Tully]

Hi,

One thing that is not mentioned... Have a had a look at the latest patches for your operating system and the firmware level for your drives.

Cheers
~Michael~

[Jeanine Kone]

Just to give an update - I worked for quite a while with support (this was escalated due to not being able to back up our new production system). They did finally agree that it was an issue witht the fbackup utility that was causing the problem. We worked around it by using vxdump for now - but are still trying to get it fixed. HP asked me for some debugging information that I have not had time to get for them yet.

I went out for maternity leave for a while, but now that I am back - I plan to pick up work on the issue.

[Pete Randall]

Jeanine,

Congratulations on your new baby. I hope everything went well. Glad you're back.

Pete