Backup to Tape - Job is waiting for Tape

[widmerkarl]

Hi guys

A few days ago i changed the backup solution at a customer site completely to Veeam Backup & Replication. Since they had Veeam B&R for Backup to Disk and Symantec Backup Exec for Backup to Tape, i combined both with Veeam B&R. First there is a backup to disk job (reverse incremental) followed by a backup to tape job (always the last backup state, which means the "calculated" full backup of reverse incremental backup to disk job).

Things work well except backup to tape job. Let me explain that.

The customer has a LTO-6 tape drive connected to the backup server and LTO-6 tapes. The tapes where used by Backup Exec before and should now be used by Veeam B&R tape job.

Everytime the backup to tape job starts, it is waiting. A tape is loaded, but Veeam B&R puts it in the "Unrecognized" media pool and so the backup to tape job wont start. I have to right click the loaded tape and mark it as "free", then the backup to tape job starts immediatly.

I already search the forum here and found the thread http://forums.veeam.com/tape-f29/veeam- ... 17654.html. But with the information given there i'm not sure how to fix the problem, since i'm not so aware of Powershell.

What i already tried at the customer site is that:
- put a tape in the drive
- start manual inventory of loaded tape
- give a name to this tape (for example "Monday 1" etc.)
- mark the tape as free
- move the tape to the custom media pool

With this i think the tapes should be now known by Veeam B&R. But as it looks like it doesn't. It doesn't matter which tape i take, Veeam recognizes it as "Unrecognized" and do nothing until i mark it manually as free.

I did not delete the used tapes. I just inventoried, marked it as free and moved it to the customer media pool manually. But nothing helped.

Can i automated this? When a script is used, do i have to setup the windows scheduler for this script or can i do that in Veeam B&R (something like "start this script before that job")?

Thank you very much for your tips and help.

[Dima P.]

Hey Karl,

A tape is loaded, but Veeam B&R puts it in the "Unrecognized" media pool and so the backup to tape job wont start.

Is it possible to mark as free all loaded media before tape jobs kicks in? Since these tape were previously in use by other software Veeam B&R won’t erase them automatically due the data that might remain on the media.

[widmerkarl]

Hey Dima,

Thanks for the reply.

I marked them already as free as mentioned in my post:

What i already tried at the customer site is that:
- put a tape in the drive
- start manual inventory of loaded tape
- give a name to this tape (for example "Monday 1" etc.)
- mark the tape as free
- move the tape to the custom media pool

This was before the backup job started the first time. my thoughts were that i put every tape in the drive, make an inventory, mark it as free (since they were used by BE before) and put them in the appropriate media pool. But it didn't work as i expected.

At the moment, every time the customer changes the tape, i have to go to the Veeam B&R gui and mark the loaded tape as free.

[veremin]

If marking tapes belonging to Unrecognized media pool works for you, you can stick to this script that I've written previously; should automate the procedure that you're doing manually. Thanks.

[Dima P.]

Sorry, missed the line. I think that’s might happen due the lack of barcode reader – try the proposed scripting workaround please and let us know if it helps.

[widmerkarl]

Hi Eremin, Dima

Thanks for the tips. Just one question. Where should i put the script?

At the moment the tape job is fired right after the backup to disk job finishes. So the script can be executed right before the tape job, within the job options itself (needs to be cmd / bat script) or i have to do something with windows task scheduler. And this should be executed before the backup to disk job, because i don't know when the customer puts in a tape.

I'll keep you updated. Perhaps we have to erase all the tapes as a last resort.

[veremin]

The script can be executed either within existing job or via Task Scheduler.

Since the script has to be run before a backup to tape job starts, the best place to set it up seems to be a source backup job post-activity. This way, once a backup job is finished, a script will take place, taking care about mediums, after that, a backup to tape job will be started.

Thanks.

[widmerkarl]

Hi guys

I'm back with an update.

I'm not the PowerShell Pro, so i wasn't able to create a script wich actually worked.

In other forum posts i read that the only real solution is to erase the tapes, if they were used by any other backup software before (e.g. Backup Exec) and than reuse it normal in Veeam. The tapes should be erased with tape drive manufacturers native tape tools (like HP Library & Tape Tools if your tape drive is a HP branded device) to make sure that there are no issues with different block sizes used in other backup software and in Veeam.

[veremin]

In other forum posts i read that the only real solution is to erase the tapes, if they were used by any other backup software before (e.g. Backup Exec) and than reuse it normal in Veeam.

In some corner cases, tapes must be erased via manufacturer tools. Though, in overwhelming majority of case quick erase executed by VB&R should be enough for making tapes usable in VB&R. Or that doesn't help in your case?

I'm not the PowerShell Pro, so i wasn't able to create a script wich actually worked.

The necessary script has been referenced above, so, you don't need to write anything on your own. Or you have problems setting it up as a pre/post-job activity?

Thanks.

[widmerkarl]

Hello

I don't like to fire up old threads. But in my case i'm now at the same position as when i started the thread.

I did the work and deleted all tapes of the customer with the HP Library & Tape tools. After that they were accepted by Veeam, and used every day. The tape job went fine.

Now the tape set (20 tapes) is used, and the tape retention starts from the first tape. The customer uses the same tapes in a weekly manner (tapes for weekdays and fridays), always five tapes per week.

Now Veeam won't accept these tape any more. Every day i have to look at the media pools if there is a tape in "Unrecognized" and i have to manually mark this tape as free. Then the job, which is actually waiting for tape will start immediately.

I will try it again with some powershell scripting. It should be enough just to make an inventory of the tape drive and move the inserted tape to free media pool.

I'll keep you updated.

Cheers!

[mfo]

I have exactly the same issue.

Veeam does not recognize that a certain tape is in the library. They are discovered by name and are in the right media pool, but when ever my backup job requests a new certain tape, it waits forever.
The tape has the "Expired" status, but is not used until I explicitly mark it as "Free". Then it is used immediately.

The tapes have never be used outside of Veeam.

[veremin]

I think you, guys, are talking about different issues:

1) VB&R doesn't recognize previously used tape and places it into Unrecognized Media Pool.
2) VB&R doesn't see that a given media has expired already.

Am I right in assuming that both of you are running the latest product version? If so, kindly, open tickets with our support team and post their numbers here, so that, we can reach our QA team and ask for assistance.

Thanks.

[mfo]

Support Case Number: 01704176

[Funki]

I have exactly the same issue.

Veeam does not recognize that a certain tape is in the library. They are discovered by name and are in the right media pool, but when ever my backup job requests a new certain tape, it waits forever.
The tape has the "Expired" status, but is not used until I explicitly mark it as "Free". Then it is used immediately.

The tapes have never be used outside of Veeam.

had exactly this Problem after update to v9. My Solution was to delete the current Tape Job and Setup a new one (same settings). Error was solved.
Clone from the current Job had also the same Error.

[veremin]

Thank you for sharing the found workaround, even though the fact that job re-creation allowed a backup server to recognize free tapes again looks a bit strange. Anyway, glad to hear that you're up and running now. Thanks.

[widmerkarl]

Hello everyone

This topic is about nearly the same issue as my post here: powershell-f26/tape-handling-with-scrip ... ml#p189392

Long time ago since i had this issue. And i don't really like to dig out old threads. But today we found a possible solution and i think that this hint will perhaps help someone.

Code: Select all

Add-PSSnapin VeeamPSSnapin
Get-VBRTapeDrive -Name "Tape0" | Start-VBRTapeInventory -Wait
$tape = Get-VBRTapeMedium -Drive "Tape0"
Erase-VBRTapeMedium -Medium $tape -Wait
Move-VBRTapeMedium -Medium $tape -MediaPool "Free" -Confirm:$false

The script above does the following:

1) it loads the Veeam powershell snappin.
2) it gets the tape drive "tape0" and does an inventory. It waits for the next steps until inventory is done.
3) It writes the content of the tape drive (literarily the name of the tape) in the variable "$tape".
4) the script then erases the tape with the variable "$tape" (quick erase) and waits until this step is done.
5) the script then moves the tape to the Veeam media pool "Free".

You will have to check the settings within the manually created media pool, that the media pool adds free tapes automatically from the free media pool in case, additional capazity is needed.