MSL4048 not reading some barcodes

[Chris Rasmussen GP]

Hi all,

Our MSL4048 has consistently had trouble reading some of our barcodes. The barcodes I'm using are brand new and provided by our secure offsite storage company. The drives and library are all running the latest firmware (at HP's request due to a recent fault call). We're using HP Data Protector 6.0 with all relevant patches installed.

When viewing the MSL4048 management interface OR Data Protector view the list of tapes in the library always shows a combination of tapes with barcodes that can be read and tapes with barcodes that can't be read at all. When trying to form tapes they sometimes say the barcode can't be read.

It's not always the same tapes which leads me to believe that the barcodes are ok (i.e. ones that fail are then able to be read at some other time). I've tried 5 new tapes this morning with 5 new bar codes and 1 of them can't be read. I've also gone through every tape in the library and made sure all the barcodes are firmly attached and not peeling in any way.

Any suggestions before I log a fault with HP saying there is something out of alignment (or whatever) with the barcode reader?

Thanks!

[TapeDrive Killer 1 2]

Make sure barcodes are compatible

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00517361/c00517361.pdf

Pablo Alvarado Siles

[Curtis Ballard]

As TapeDriveKiller states - it's essential that the barcodes be compatible. We only recommend the HP barcodes and have spent a significant amount of time working on the consistency of those barcodes so that they can be read every time.

The behavior you describe is classic marginal barcode behavior. Slight variations in the alignment between the barcode reader and the tape will cause the barcode to be read sometimes and not other times.

[ColetteH]

The link in thread is broken. Here is the new download link -https://assets.ext.hpe.com/is/content/hpedam/documents/4aa6-2000-2999/4aa6-2811/4aa6-2811enw.pdf  

Found on this page with other technical white papers -
https://www.hpe.com/us/en/storage/storeever-tape-storage.html#Resources
Expand the “Resources” section to “Show More”. You should see the document - ‘Bar code and RFID labels for HPE tape automation with HPE bar code labels in a highly effective tape management system technical white paper’