rupsty

Hey Twickland, Thanks for the response. Your reply ended on a somewhat terse note and I'm not sure why. My question at this point was to ask if anyone has had a similar experience with similar equipement. I could delve very deeply into every aspect of my setup and include the firmware of every single point in the chain but with a general question I didn't think it necessary or appropriate. I would never tell someone who is asking for help to get rid of "I thinks". That's just rude. But hey, we must be different. Thanks again, Rusty ps - I actually spoke with technical support very briefly and they had a very good idea of what was going on without telling me to get rid of "I thinks".

Hello, Longtime user of Retrospect server. Upgraded to a new server running osx 10.9 (I believe). The mac mini is inside a 1U Sonnet case that uses an ATTO sas card (H680 i think). Retro loads up and runs and also sees the library. So far so good. I start a backup and it gets a minute or so into the backup and just stops. The log has errors stating something to the effect "trouble communicating". I'm not really sure what to do. I found an article stating something to the effect that the ATTO and the LTO 4 tape library have trouble with each other unless you update the firmware on the library. The problem is, the mac compatible software that does the firmware update doesn't seem to be compatible to the new server's OS. I'm going nuts here. I also have a call to tech support. Has anyone had experience with this? Thanks in advance. Rusty

I believe the library was on - I didn't actually touch a power button at any time. I had a chance to work on our main server and it also functions properly now after another reboot. Maybe the server and the tape library weren't communicating fully yet by the time the server finished rebooting? I don't know. Thanks for the responses guys, Rusty

Hi Russ, I think I figured it out - I have two identical servers that had the same problem. One of the servers isn't heavily used so I tried something: I shut down the server and rebooted it again. It sees the library properly now. Why now instead of after the power out? Who knows.... I'll have to try this on the other server to confirm. If it doesn't I'll try your solution. Thanks for the reply, Rusty

Everything was working great until power failure. Here's my setup: Retrospect 8.2.0 (399) OS X Server 10.6.4 Tandberg T-24 Tape Library My question: After rebooting the server, Retrospect recognizes the drive. It also seems to recognize the tape library but now the library appears as an icon in Retrospects list of storage devices but I cannot see the individual tapes inside it as before. Prior to the power outtage all the slots and tapes appear as a drop down arrow. How do I get this working again? Thanks in advance, Rusty

Here's what one of my servers is running. OS X Server 10.6.4 Intel 2 Ghz Dual-Core Zeon 1 GB RAM Tandberg Data T24 Tape Library I can tell I probably could use some more ram btw!! But my current Retrospect works fairly well. I'm guessing because I don't back up any of our workstations over our network. We don't keep any important data on them. Thanks for the response! Rusty

I'm running Retrospect 8.1(626) and things are running as well as expected - the usual small bugs for me but my backups are intact and I'm afraid upgrading could really screw things up. Anyone having any reasons to NOT update to the latest version? Thanks, Rusty

So here goes: There are obviously some really smart, talented people in this forum that use Retrospect. These people have quite a bit of experience using various versions of Retrospect but without a manual it's a matter of trial, error, and this forum to figure out how to use the software. Is there anybody out there who would be willing to write a manual of things that we have learned so far. A sort of RetroWiki if you will. This is a lot to ask for anyone so I propose approaching EMC for a fee to write it. It doesn't seem unreasonable to get compensation for this. As for the reality of getting paid even a little, who knows. I understand the implications of EMC actually supporting a user created manual. I would be interested in doing this myself but I know barely enough to get my own software running, much less write a basic manual. If you all think I'm a fool for even suggesting this, you're probably right. What do you think?

I think Retrospect doesn't like it when you tell a script to run and there's no tape in the drive. I assumed there would be a message or maybe Retrospect would go find the tape in the library (Tandberg T24) but no. It crashed the Retro engine and I wasn't able to get the engine restarted until I restarted the mac. When I finally put a tape in the drive mechanism it worked fine. Incidentally, I didn't know until yesterday that dragging and dropping a tape from the library slot into the drive slot, via Retrospect's GUI, actually moves the tape from one to the other. Kinda cool. Thought I would let everyone know. Best, Rusty

Ah, good point. Thanks. : )

Yes this seems entirely possible. I'll have to check out that os x server list. It's funny - this only happens once a while and doesn't seem to cause any problems. But after installing a newer version of os x server, new Retrospect, and a new tape library I get sorta paranoid!! Referring to a previous post it's interesting to know that os x server is moving non-contiguous files around to get them in one contiguous space. I didn't know os x server did this. Interesting. Thanks for the tip! Rusty

"It" is photoshop I didn't include the warning message because I truly didn't remember it word for word. I also can't recreate the scenario at will so that I can remember to include it in a post. As we all know, people around here tend to have the same or similar issues and I was hoping it might jar someone's memory who's having the same issues. I thought that most people would understand the basic message when I stated "I can't remember exactly what it says but it's a non-fatal warning stating that the file changed since last save." Should I just not say anything if my question isn't precise enough?

Ah. Interesting. I own a prepress company and I recently installed Snow Leopard and my employees are telling me that their photoshop files have changed since they opened it. It gives a warning message when saving a file sometimes. I can't remember exactly what it says but it's a non-fatal warning stating that the file changed since last save. Thanks for the info! Rusty

After backing up, does Retrospect actually change any file attributes or does it leave the file untouched? Thanks, Rusty

Thanks Russ, very informative. Chills are now multiplied... Rusty