Tape Identification Issues

[ekisner]

Lately more than in the past (however this has always been visible since tape support was first added) my tape library becomes quite confused as to which tape is in the library.

What I mean by this is when I swap tapes I always run an inventory job. Sometimes, the inventory job will not correctly update the name of a tape, and either show it as an unrecognized tape or show it as the old tape. Often times, I am then forced to run a catalog of the tapes, and other times still I must physically remove the affected tapes from the library, let it see the empty slots, then re-add the tape and re-inventory the slots. If I do not complete these steps, B&R excludes the tape due to retention (or not being in the correct media pool), and my tape job fails - which is very frustrating when it's 1TB through a VM, and has to start over again.

Figuring that perhaps my tape drive may be bummed out, I downloaded their utilities and ran some extensive diagnostics, which show no abnormal I/O concerns.

I'm using a Quantum Superloader 3, does anyone have any experience with this happening?

[ekisner]

For today's occurrence, I've now been forced to erase the tape. I can probably just run a catalog of the tape it thinks it's erasing to get to the backup files, but just the same, somewhat frustrating.

[Dima P.]

Hello Erik,
Does your library have a barcode reader or it is in the ‘blind’ mode? Thanks.

[late]

Hello,

This is pretty much the same we are seeing in our environment. Did you manage to figure out what was the cause? We are using HP StoreEver Autoloader. No barcodes used.

[Dima P.]

Hi Late,

Could you please elaborate why you are not using the barcode reader (I believe, your library should have this module)?

[late]

Hi Dima,

We implemented barcodes yesterday. It seems to be working better now

br,
Late

[Reklov]

Hi,

we have still the same problem, also after upgrading to VBR8Update3. As Support told me, this will be fixed within Update3, but ist is not fixed.

The Barcodereader is enabled, but the used Tapes does not habe Barcodes.
Have somebody an idea ?

Regard,
Volker

[veremin]

Can you tell us your support ticket number? Thanks.

[Reklov]

Inventory fails - Case # 01004791

[Reklov]

If I remove the "foreigen Tapes" from the magazin, wait for an inventory, place the the Tapes back to the magazin, wait for an inventory, the Tapes will be displayed as "unrecognized" and named e.g. Tape1 & Tape2.
Now I can erase the Tapes an give them an new name.

[Dima P.]

Thank you for the heads up and I am glad to hear that your issue is resolved. Please add the barcode labels to the said media once you got chance: that is not a mandatory, but makes a tape management a lot easier. Cheers!

[Reklov]

Hi Dima,

sorry, but imho this issue isn't solved .

Cheers!

[Dima P.]

Hi Reklov,

I am sorry, it seems I am missing something. You posted that after re adding the tapes you were able to run the inventory and rename the tape media, is that correct?

[Reklov]

Hi Dima,

well, first I must remove the Tapes from the Slots where new ones take place. Then I mus inventory the empty Slots. After this the "new, maby foreigen Tapes" can be mounted to the empty slots. Again an inventory. The the new tapes will be recognized as "unrecognized".

The step to inventory the empty slots is the trouble.

[Dima P.]

Thank you for the heads up. I wonder if you got any response from support team?

[ekisner]

Just wanted to follow up after talking to the support team on a different topic, though closely related to this one.

Observed behaviour was that not only was it not recognizing tapes, but it was actually incorrectly labeling one of them. For example, tape 3A was labeled as 2A, several were correct, and the remaining 3 were generic "Tape #".

We are blind (that is, we have no bar code readers). Ultimately the problem seemed relating to the tapes, or at least their identification in the system. Since the retention period was a mere 4 weeks for that particular set of tapes, I just put them aside until the retention period expired and then deleted the tapes from the catalog (the ones showing as being offline) as well as a quick erase of the actual tape. When the tapes are next used I can post a followup if anyone is interested.

[Dima P.]

Hello Erik,

When the tapes are next used I can post a followup if anyone is interested

Do you have a case id specifically for the identification issues? Thanks.

[lobo519]

Just wanted to add to this thread - Started using tape with Veeam over the last few weeks with no barcodes and are seeing the same problems. Veeam not updating with the current tape when swapping tapes around. it can be pretty cumbersome and time consuming.

We never had to use barcodes in the past but a looking into it as it seems most people have good results.

edit: on Latest version of V9 (9.0.0.1491) and using Dell TL1000

[Dima P.]

Hi lobo519,

Veeam not updating with the current tape when swapping tapes around.

You mean during import/export operations?

using Dell TL1000

As far as I know, this autoloader has a built in barcode reader

[lobo519]

Sure we can call it that. Often we find if I take tape 1 out and put tape 2 in the drive still show Tape 1. Sometimes doing an inventory works sometimes it doesn't and we have to pull everything out and wait for it to show empty.

It does indeed have a barcode reader - just have to get labels and never had a problem with other software reading the tapes accordingly.

Cool feature request that no one else has would be a Veeam custom barcode generator. )

Right now using some random German site to get the custom barcodes I want (Days of week)

[howartp]

NetC Europe.co.uk (without the space) is where I get mine from.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk