symmpi Event 11 - Controller Error \Device\Scsi\symmpi1

[AM1065]

Hi All,

My environment is
Dell PowerEdge 2850
Win Server 2003 R2 Std Edn SP2
Backup Exec 2010 R3

Recently we have started backing up using a HP LTO4 Ultrium 1760 SCSI external tape drive (EH922A) with a LSI20320 SCSI Ultra 320 HBA PCI-X 1ch card attached to this server

My backups are failing after reaching around 8GB and event log records the following error:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: symmpi
Event Category: None
Event ID: 11
Date: 10/06/2011
Time: 14:06:48
User: N/A
Computer: CT-RD-1
Description:
The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Scsi\symmpi1.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 0f 00 10 00 01 00 66 00 ......f.
0008: 00 00 00 00 0b 00 04 c0 .......Ã
0010: 00 00 04 11 00 00 00 00 ........
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0028: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0030: 00 00 00 00 06 00 00 00 ........

The server seems to become unresponsive for sometime and then Backup Exec issues the following alert (check attached image)

I have checked the forums and some say that the following registry entry is required. This is currently not present on my server.

1. Click on Run, type regedit.

2. Open the path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\SCSI\[device identifier name for the tape LTO-3 tape device]\[numeric device instance id for the LTO-3 tape device]\Device Parameters\

3. Right Click Device Parameters, click New> Key and rename it as Storport.

4. Right Click Storport key> New> DWORD and rename it as BusyRetryCount and the value should be set to 250 decimal.

5. Exit regedit.

6. Reboot the server.

This registry settings are documented on Microsoft public article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932755 under "Update to modify the behavior of the BUSY status and the Task Set Full status in the Storport driver", in our case, the default value of 20 has been changed to 250.

Please can someone advise if they have encountered this issue and if the above registry is the fix for this problem

Thanks !

[souhail]

hi,
could you please check the service Removible storage if it's disabled
are you using the driver of backup exec or hp(driver of tape)
in last you have to check firmware version of tape drive(using l&tt)then driver version of controllor card because the error which you got in EVT sys indicated a problem in SCSI channel

[AM1065]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply

Removable Storage was Running. So I disabled it and then tried the backup to tape and it still failed with the same symptoms.

I am using driver provided by Backup Exec

The firmware on tape drive was old. So I updated it using L&TT and the symptoms still persist.

Driver version of controller card is 1.9.11.0

HP have advised that the problem is with the tape drive itself. So I am going to plugging in a replacement drive tonight and see how it goes

Will update you later

Thanks for your input

[souhail]

hi
firstly you have to keep the Removible storage disabled because it cause a backup problem if you keep it running
however did you generate a support ticket(lzt file)through l&tt for further diagnostic?

[AM1065]

An update on this issue - HP replaced the tape drive and my backups are working as normal now. Looks like the original tape drive had an inherent problem which was causing this issue.