Tape relabeling and loading problem

Question

I am having all sorts of trouble getting tapes to relabel, to automatically recycle and to even load. I am positive that no tapes have the write protect tab set. In fact, many of them are brand new from HP. Others have just been used and are being relabeled without anyone changing the write protect tab. The library is an HP MSL4048 with two drives and SATA connections. Sometimes the tape will load, eject and then the library will move the tape to the other drive (there are two in this library). The firmware is up to date. I also get warnings of bad media on brand new tapes and sometimes on tapes that have not even been loaded to a drive, they are just newly inserted in the library. Anyone run into this before? The OS is Win 2003 sp2. Networker is 7.6.5. Typical message is: Warning Monday 3:04:05 PM \.\Tape0 media \.\Tape0 write open error: command completed successfully (drive status is DRIVE_STATUS_WRITE_PROTECT) Another common message is that the Networker command has been cancelled due to external actions causing the library to not be in sync with networker. I have checked the cabling. There is no other backup software running on that box. This problem started a couple of months ago. Should the Windows Media Changer and tape drive drivers be disabled? I have see that on an earlier library we needed to turn off the Windows drivers. Can these conflict with Networker? Does this seem like it could be some sort of hardware problem? Am stumped.

TimQuan · Answer

First make sure tapes are not write-protected.

If so, try to disable the CDI at NMC >Device > right-click the tape drive > select Properties > to the advanced tab > select Not used at CDI. Can this tape be recycled now?

ble1 · Answer

The errors you described are typical errors when library goes boink.  You can wish to recycle library first and see if that happens again.  The errors you see are errors given by library and passed to system via driver on the system - nothing to do with NW.

david_knapp · Answer

That is what it looks like. The messages are just way out of character with what is going on.

kshariprakash · Answer

Hi,

Is RSM disabled from services tab?

Are you also seeing these kind of messages on daemon.raw?

Jukebox moved from "ready" state to "detected hardware change"

Jukebox moved from "detected hardware change " state to "ready"

Jukebox toggling between ready to detected hardware change could be a issue with Device drivers as well , Update the devices drivers & verify.

Regards

Hari Prakash.

david_knapp · Answer

Not yet, but I will try it. When I use the HP Tape Tools that program does ask to have the RSM service stopped.

david_knapp · Answer

I turned off CDI, was able to relable the tape, but then got error that tape drive failed to eject the tape. No tapes are write protected. An EMC Technical Note from 2009 says CDI should be kept enabled, as new functions will depend on it. The note also blames CDI problems from old tape drivers. Ours are at the newest version from HP.

Should I disable RSM?

david_knapp · Answer

When I turned off RSM the situation cleared up quite a bit. There was an odd instance of a tape being ejected in the middle of a backup with multiple clients. The system then immediately reloaded the same tape without stoppping the job. Seemed like a waste of effort but the job later completed normally. All the screwy messages went away.

NetWorker

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