Tape job taking over 70 hours #06103414

[jboettger]

I have a single tape job that used to take 30-35 hours under v11. I upgraded to v12 and it takes over 70 hours. For the last 35 hours or so the jobs has been at 99% complete and 0 KB/s transfer rate.

My open ticket number is 06103414.

I've done everything that was asked, rebooted server, powered off drives, made sure drivers for tape drives are up to date, tested tape drives.

I have 3 LTO 8 tape drives and 1 LTO 9 tape drive. It is not a library with a single drive but 4 singular drives.
Again, this worked as expected in v11. I am running build 12.0.0.1420 P20230412.

Please help me get this resolved.

Thanks,
Jim

[Gostev]

Hi, Jim. This is a not a support forum and we're unable to troubleshoot issues over forum posts. You need to work with our Customer Support to get this resolved. Please review the forum rules displayed when you click New Topic closely and keep them in mind for your future contributions in this community. Thank you for understanding!

[jboettger]

Gustav, thanks for getting back to me. THis is a software issue. This has been going for me for over 2 months now with no resolution in sight.
I continue to get the same responses from support, well it's not our software it must be your hardware, yet my hardware worked flawlessly in v11 and has passed all tests.

What more can SUpport do to help me here?

Jim

[Gostev]

They are expected to escalate to the next support tier. Then if even T3 support folks cannot solve it, the responsible R&D team will get involved.

In addition, you can always escalate any long-standing support case to the Support Management yourself. The process is described in the forum rules.

[jboettger]

Good morning. I am at my wits end here on this. Elena is trying to help but we are getting no where towards a resolution. She continually says it's a hardware problem and the tapes drives are not working. The logs indication that the it the tape is waiting but I believe now that it's waiting for a blank tape to be inserted in the tape drive. These are my immutable backups to tape that get sent offsite every week. This job has not completed for over 3 months.

I have 4 standalone drives, 3 lto-8 and 1 lto-9. I've tested all 4 tape drives multiple times and all pass with no errors. I've restarted, I've powered everything off, I've made sure that all drivers are up to date and a reminder that my tape job worked flawlessly in v11 so I can't see how this is a hardware issue.

The job simply backs up the C; and E: drive of my Replication server. It's about 54tb total. The job allocates the first 3 lto-8 drives but does not allocate the lto-9 until after the lto-8 drives are completely full. The job stalls once it finishes using the LTO-9 tape drive but does not eject and it only says that it's used 10tb of 15tb. The B&R console definitely says that there is 15tb of free space available when the job starts but when it releases it says it's only used 10tb with 5.6 free. Why isn't B&R server using all 15tb of the LTO-9 drive?

We finally realized that the job is looking for a blank tape to continue but we weren't getting any notification that a blank tape needed to be mounted. Once we put a blank tape in one of the available tape drives the job continued however it stalled again and with the tape showing 5tb free. Why aren't we getting notification that a blank tape is needed and why isn't the full complement of space on the tapes being utilized?

This morning we put two blank tapes into the LTO-8 drives. The job continued and I am hoping that the job will complete for the first in two months since I upgraded to v12.

Can someone do a desktop sharing session with me so I can show you the things that I am describing. Maybe that will help with understanding the issue.

Would someone please help with this!!!

Thanks,
JIm

[jboettger]

I am happy to report that this issue has been resolved.

Thanks,
Jim

[karsten123]

how? what is the solution?

[jboettger]

The lastest patch fixes the tape issues and the test that was created enabled parrallel processing for some reason.

That made LTO-9 tape adhere to the 10tb limit for some reason even though the parallel processing was set to 3 tapes only.

Tradeoff is I get my space back on the LTO-9 tape but backup does take longer with parrallel processing turned off.

Thanks,
Jim

[hnhn99]

Hi! Did you do anything more then upgrade to latest patch release? I'm on same version as you had (12.0.0.1420 P20230412) and my tape backups are way too slow.