Backup Exec Device and Media Service Hung 'Stopping'

Question

Does anyone know how I can kill the Backup Exec Device and Media Service (pvlsrv.exe)? When jobs on my 122T (Windows 2003 / PowerEdge 2650 / Adaptec 39160 ) sometimes fail, I cannot successfully stop this service without restarting my server. It is hung 'stopping' now for over 3 hours. Without restarting services or my server after the IO error reported last night, no backup jobs will run. I get so many types of errors reported by Veritas I will not address them all here, but under my current config, I went 3 days with no problems at all until yesterday. I have tried stop service tools built into Vertias 9.1, BE Utilities, and kill.exe. I have attempted to start and stop associated services, powered down my 122T, reset it; my only option appears to be to reboot the 2650 once again. Google and Veritas were no help.

Any insight would be appreciated - thanks

Kevin

dell-richard g · Answer

A server reboot is required. I do not think that the Backup Exec service is the problem, whereas it maybe relying on other components within the OS to free up and they are not doing so, thus the Backup Exec service hangs for ever.

Better yet, maybe it is easier to identify why it gets like that in the first place. When you start to see problems with the tape unit, have you checked the OS system event viewer for any SCSI error messages? If so, what do they say?

KevinHC · Answer

I get errors of that sort. Here are two that I got this weekend. I will follow-up on these via Dell Support but wanted to share them with you. Before these events occur, when running backups, my 122T reports "Drive Stopped / Writing" over and over. New tapes are getting reported as bad (!) as well by the 122T.

Event Type: Error
Event Source: adpu160m
Event Category: None
Event ID: 11
Date:  6/20/2004
Time:  10:52:34 PM
User:  N/A
Computer: CORE
Description:
The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Scsi\adpu160m1.

After that message in event viewer, I get the following:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: dlttape-VRTS
Event Category: None
Event ID: 15
Date:  6/20/2004
Time:  10:52:40 PM
User:  N/A
Computer: CORE
Description:
The device, \Device\Tape0, is not ready for access yet.

dell-richard g · Answer

The Veritas tape class driver message is indicating that the OS has lost communication with the drive, therefore, the OS removes the device from the device manager. This could have been caused by a problem in the SCSI controller or somethign that is interfering whci SCSI communications.

In order to pinpoint the controller error problem, can you cut/paste the adaptec error messages (iwhen you doubleclick the event viewer error message, there will be dump data listed. this gives a little more insight to what may be happening- select WORDS before cut/paste).

Are there any error messages displayed on the tape unit LCD panel?

Have you installed the latest SCSI adapter drivers and firmware?

Is the tape unit properly terminated.? Chech all cabling for bent pins...etc

Is there any other device connected to the tape unit? (i.e. hard drive).

KevinHC · Answer

I got a new 122T, SCSI card and cable that I will install today. If I am still having problems after that, I will take your advise in the above post. Thanks a lot Kevin

EdenHosting · Answer

I have had all of these issues and many more with the Adaptec/Dell PV120/Veritas combination for years. It's almost a full-time job just keeping these 3 components happy with each other long enough to get a few backups! It's just INSANE. Thinking that newer is better, I decided to try the upgrade to Veritas v9.1 and what a horrific nightmare that turned out to be. Nothing would work, no matter how many "free" technical support incidents I was given by Veritas (one at a time...while EVALUATING the stupid software). After investing 2-months of hard work, I finally gave up, deleted all of the BackupExec products (including all the new agents that had to be installed on every server in our farm, including Linux machines) and re-installed Veritas v8.6 and all the agents again, and everything started working GREAT again.

However, Windows 2003 keeps telling me that the drivers installed by Veritas will cause problems and will be disabled. I ignored this issue and kept everything running, and it ran fine for several months, and now I am having the old "Offline" tape drive issues and the omnipresent "Queued" status in Veritas. So I went through and removed all of the tape drive drivers, updated the tape drive firmware, etc. until blue in the face, but I cannot get past the "Queued" status anymore. Anybody have any idea how to get this stuff working?

Paul Scott

KevinHC · Answer

My problems are all fixed. I replaced my 122T, SCSI card, and cable, and ALL my problems are gone. What a headache it was pouring through all the software errors (i must have gotten 10 different types of job failures) when it was a hardware issue.

Thanks to all.

PowerVault

Backup Exec Device and Media Service Hung "Stopping"

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