Avamar: SQL Incremental backups intermittently leave a frozen avtar.exe session. "avsql error: lock error - process already running or error creating local lock file"

Summary: Avamar: SQL Incremental backups intermittently leave a frozen avtar.exe session. "avsql error: lock error - process already running or error creating local lock file"

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Symptoms

Avamar client SQL plug-in incremental backups intermittently leave a frozen avtar.exe session.
In the log, the error or warning below can be seen: 
Warning <6690>: CTL workorder "XXX-YYY-ZZZ" non-zero exit status 'code 536870915: lock error - process already running or error creating local lock file'
Clients that observe a frozen "avtar.exe" processes can be spotted (in Windows Task Manager).
Sometimes, the backup may fail with the same error, but there is no frozen avtar.exe. Frozen avtar.exe can appear about an hour later, after backup has finished.  

Cause

There are a few reasons for the failure as listed below. 
  1. Time-out communication between avsql and avtar has expired (default is 30 sec)
  2. Avamar software glitches

Resolution

To resolve this issue. 
  • Add the following flag to the avsql.cmd file, created in the Avamar VAR folder (usually it is c:\Program Files\avs\var)
--subprocesstimeoutsecs=300
  • Upgrade the Avamar Server to.
    • 19.4.100-124 or later 
    • The fix is in Avamar 19.4 and later software releases.   

Affected Products

Avamar

Products

Avamar, Avamar Client for Windows, Avamar Plug-in for SQL
Article Properties
Article Number: 000057833
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 08 Mar 2024
Version:  4
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