Veeam Backup does not let us unlock tapes

[apalmeria]

Hello,

So I've encoutered this problem many times since working with Veeam backup.

I have 2 media pools numbered media pool 1 and 2 in which there are 5 tapes each numbered from 1 to 5, each week I protect and deprotect a tape to be writen so for example this week tape 1 will be used so I deprotect it with the "protect" option veeam has, next week tape 2 will be used so I protect tape 1 and deprotect tape 2 and so on until it uses the last tape 5 on the media pool, then I proceed to protect the last tape on the media pool 1 and phisically change them with the tapes from the media pool 2 and start the same procedure again.

The problem comes when sometimes veeam backup does not let us deprotect those tapes which are protected or sometimes happens the other way, does not let us protect tapes which are deprotected.

I have oppened many cases with this issue but the only thing they say is that I need to update my tape machine with the latest drivers but the machine that I use has no support so I can't download any updates from anywhere, this problem I never had until the ends of year 2021 and since then happened 2 times and now it's the 3rd.

Any ideas why this problems are happening?

[HannesK]

Hello,
and welcome to the forums.

Can you please provide the support case numbers to see what support answered?

Often tape issues are caused by driver issues, so there might be no real alternative from Veeam side except asking to upgrade them.

Best regards,
Hannes

[apalmeria]

Hello,

Case #05587347

Case #05548194

Case #05241877

Those are the case support numbers, they are in spanish.

[Regnor]

Do you see any error messages from Veeam when protecting/expiring tapes fails?

[apalmeria]

No, can't see any error messages of any kind, when selecting the tape which you want to protect/deprotect the button just stays in grey rather than in color and when triying to click it does not do anything.

[Regnor]

Ok, than you will have to work further with support on this, as they'll have to check the logs.
In my opinion protecting/expiring tapes is a software feature which doesn't really touch the tapes.
So I would say the issue is rather Veeam related then with your tape hardware.

[HannesK]

hmm, I don't speak Spanish, but the last case 05587347 seems to be about the topic. And that case was closed automatically because support did not get any answers.

I can only suggest to open a case specifically for this one topic and provide log files. Without log files, support cannot help.

[MarkusRebmann]

hello
what type of drive is it ?
LTO ?
I noticed that Windows still includes very old drivers (also win2022).
Best regards,
Markus