MacWright Posted April 28, 2004 Report Share Posted April 28, 2004 I've just upgraded to 10.3.3 and Retrospect 6.0.193 and driver 5.2.101 with a : Sony AIT SDX300C Adaptec 29160 (driver 1.2) Is this a compatible setup, it has been working fine with 10.2.8 and Retrospect 5.1, but my first scheduled backup reported back with "miscompare of data offset" and "Bad backup set header" errors. I've deleted this new backup set and am currently reruning the script. It was roughly 19gigs of data with only 20 files reporting errors (about 900 mb's). What were the new features that couldn't be used with the older backup set format? thanks, Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacWright Posted April 28, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 28, 2004 I'm in the middle of reruning the script and now every file is coming back with a "bad backup set header"..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacWright Posted April 28, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 28, 2004 I'm also seeing "backup set format inconsistency" errors....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacWright Posted April 28, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 28, 2004 pressed the cuda reset, tried a new tape, checked connections, tried a backup from a different hard drive.... no luck... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacWright Posted April 28, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 28, 2004 "Note: Currently Dantz does not support any Adaptec SCSI adapters for use in the Power Macintosh G5 or any Macintosh running Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. No changes to Retrospect will be necessary to support these adapters in Mac OS X 10.3 Panther when Adaptec provides full compatibility." Is this the problem! First I need to create new sets of AIT tapes to upgrade($$) and now I need to purchase a new scsi card($$)? Are we having fun yet? Has anyone tried the Adaptec beta version driver v1.3beta1? Here's the info about Panther compatibility with SCSI cards, appears that the only card that I may be able to use is the ATTO UL4D with my AIT drive, is this correct? do I have any other options?: "10.3 Panther Compatibility Please consult with your SCSI Card vendor for SCSI adapter compatibility with Panther. Your card vendor may have an update required for use with Panther. ATTO has released several SCSI driver updates which may improve overall stability. ATTO UL4D users with 10.3 (Panther) must use the 3.0.3 or later ATTO driver. Note: Currently Dantz does not support any Adaptec SCSI adapters for use in the Power Macintosh G5 or any Macintosh running Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. No changes to Retrospect will be necessary to support these adapters in Mac OS X 10.3 Panther when Adaptec provides full compatibility. At this time Dantz does not support the Initio Miles and BlueNote SCSI Adapters on Mac OS 10.3" Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
9dotbox Posted April 28, 2004 Report Share Posted April 28, 2004 The same thing just started happening to me in the past few days. I'm running on a brand new dual processeor G4 tower with OS 10.3.3. The Adaptec 29160 card, with the built-in OSX drivers, and Sony AIT-3 tape library. The funny thing is that it was working fine for about three weeks, then this weekend I tried doing a restore over the network to an OSX.3 client, replacing the entire volume. It ran for hours then failed. Ever since then I've been getting the bad backup set errors whenever I do a backup. This is in spite of cycling in brand new media. The only thing that I changed is I turned data verification ON. I did this because of the aforementioned problem doing a full restore. I'm going to turn Data Verification OFF, and erase the media and try again tonight. I backup about 300GB each night (one and a half AIT-3 tapes). If this works, then it was the Data Verification, which just masks the problem, because obiviously the resulting backups don't work. Do I need to replace the SCSI card? If so with what? I'm very concerned. I loathe trying to get support from Dantz on this because in the past they just seem to want to pass the buck. This is bad, very bad... JS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacWright Posted April 28, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 28, 2004 Hi Joe, Sorry to hear that you are in the same boat. I spoke to Adaptec and they seem to think that everthing was OK up to 10.3.3 did you upgrade in the past couple days from 10.3.2. I also spoke to Dantz Tech support and asked what cards can I use, they read me the clip about the ATTO from the web site which only says that they've released a new driver that may help (there's a vote of confidence). Backup software is serious stuff.... and unfortunately I believed the press releases that talked about v6 compatibility with Panther. Adaptec says that their card is compatible with Panther but not Retrospect, Dantz says their software is compatible with Panther but not Adaptec. This is ridiculous! Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
9dotbox Posted May 6, 2004 Report Share Posted May 6, 2004 Sorry it took me a while to get follow up on my prior post. Once again, the config is: - new dual G4 tower with OS 10.3.3. - The Adaptec 29160 card, with the built-in OSX drivers - and Sony AIT-3 tape library. When I left off I was going to try to turn OFF verification to see if the errors went away. THEY DID! Since I originally discovered the problem when I was trying to do a recover from one of the backups, that leads me to coclude that the issue is with READING, not writing from the tape. You may want to try this to see if you share this experience. Like it or not I'm going to have to follow up with DANTZ to remedy this. I feel that it renders my backups workthless. Dantz says that RERTROSPECT 6 fully supports panther, and is "FULLY QUALIFIED" with the SONY AIT-3 drive. If so, then how the hell do they connect with it. I'll swap out the SCSI card if that's what it takes. I'm not that familier with SCSI standards, so I selected this card based on being familier with the Adaptec name. Is is really disgusting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacWright Posted May 7, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 7, 2004 >When I left off I was going to try to turn OFF verification to see if the errors went away. THEY DID! Other than the verification have you tried to retrieve anything from the tapes? Curious if that writes are corrupted or just the response to the Retrospect verify? >Dantz says that RERTROSPECT 6 fully supports panther, Dantz is fully compatible with panther and so is Adaptec, they just aren't compatible with each other? I was forced to discard my Adaptec 294OUW cards because of a previous OS/Retrospect upgrade, I guess I should have moved to ATTO at that point. I wonder if they ( Adaptec or Dantz or Apple) have even figured out where the problem lies, if not, then we may have a long wait. In the interim I bought a large drive for temporary backup, but that may not be enough if this drags on. I can understand that problems occur, but the "silence" can be frustrating...... Oh well I guess that you and I are the only ones that purchased D6, AIT and a 29160? I wish us both luck. Regards, Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted May 9, 2004 Report Share Posted May 9, 2004 MacWrite wrote: >Adaptec says that their card is compatible with Panther but not Retrospect, Dantz says their >software is compatible with Panther but not Adaptec. This is ridiculous! Ridiculous in what way? Not only are Adaptec cards unqualified by the software vendor for use with that vendor's product, but said vendor has gone so far as to specifically UN-qualify said cards. Joe Scrapa wrote: >When I left off I was going to try to turn OFF verification to see if the errors went away. THEY DID! >Since I originally discovered the problem when I was trying to do a recover from one of the backups, >that leads me to coclude that the issue is with READING, not writing from the tape. Illogical conclusion, Joe. The only way to know if data has been properly written to tape is to read it back successfully. The theory that your unsupported SCSI host adapter wrote the data correctly, but was simply unable to read it accurately was unproven by your tests. Turning of Verification is like sticking your head in the sand. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffLambert Posted May 10, 2004 Report Share Posted May 10, 2004 I'm having the same problem (the bad backup set header message, and or the unsuccessful retreive of data), but my configuration changes in the system. I'm still running OS X 10.2.8 server, retrospect 6.0.193 with driver update, Adaptec 39160, LaCie AIT-3 tape drive (the mechanisme is Sony SDX-700C). I haven't found a solution to my problem but here is what I did, so maybe that can help Dantz figure out what's going on. First, I tried to retreive a big folder (3.6 gig) and got the spinning tape wheels when it came to "retreiving". It was able to find the data (according to the dialog), but just hang their with 0K, 0 files copied. After about 2 hours, I cancelled it. I quit the cancellation process after an hour and had to force quit Retrospect from the Apple menu. I then restarted retrospect and got the Scanning devices messages which hung retrospect again. I then restarted the machine, which is our File server, and restared retrospect. It now saw the drive. After reading the forums, I checked the driver for the SCSI card and saw it was still 1.1, so I installed version 1.2. Did the same as above and tried to retrieve my data. No go. I then updated the firmware of the card from 1.0 to 1.2 and updated to the beta of adaptec driver 1.3b1. Now, everytime I click on devices, retrospect hangs and I have to force quit it. If I unplug the AIT Drive, Then retrospect works (but I can't do anything with it). I then reinstalled retrospect on another machine running OS X 10.2.8 but with still the driver 1.1 for Adaptect 39160, and moved the card from the server to this machine. Retrospect didn't hang on device scan anymore. So I tried to put this new install to the test and after getting the backup sets from the server, I tried to retreive my 3.6 gig of data. Still got the spinning tape wheels after the dialog said "retreiving..." After a while I still didn't get anywhere so I cancelled and then had to force quit retrospect. I then restarted the machine. I then tried to make a test backup 155k, then retreived it. It didn't work. I then tried to clean the tape drive 5 times in a row. And remade the same test with a 155k file. It worked! I then tried with a bigger file 150 mb. The backup always work fine, with or without verification. Then, I tried to retrieve the 150 file and got the bad backup set header message. Retrospect hangs after a while. The weird thing is that I did get this message only late in the process, if I try to retrieve my old data, I don't have the message, retrospect just hangs and nothing is writen to the log. I'm suspecting a bad tape drive, but after reading this forum, I'm not so sure. What do you think? JeffL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacWright Posted May 11, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 11, 2004 MacWrite wrote: >Adaptec says that their card is compatible with Panther but not Retrospect, Dantz says their >software is compatible with Panther but not Adaptec. This is ridiculous! Hi Dave, As a consumer it is "ridiculous" to have purchased a card from a vendor that states their product is OSX compatible ( http://adaptec.com/worldwide/product/proddetail.html?sess=no&language=English+US&prodkey=APD-29160&cat=%2fTechnology%2fMacintosh%2fSCSI+for+Macintosh ) And Dantz made an equally defined statement (http://dantz.com/en/about/news/detail.dtml?id=179) If both products proclaim compatibility then where is my error? But mostly important is that when I went to the product page (for R6) before committing to an upgrade to Panther I used the advanced search for compatible devices, I plugged in AIT SCSI MACOS, and found the following page ( http://dantz.com/index.php3?SCREEN=compatibility_list_detail&id=7824 ) So, I thought that I had pursued the compatibility issue by checking the card, the device and the software. It wasn't until I experienced the problem that I searched the Dantz Knowlegebase and found ( http://dantz.com/index.php3?SCREEN=kbase&ACTION=KBASE&id=27381 ). This information should have been posted on the device compatibility page not buried in a knowledge database to be found by people like me who experience the problem after purchasing the Retrospect upgrade and upgrading my computer. My understanding is that "compatible" is an absolute, and if they stated that they were "sort of, kind of, maybe compatible" then I could see that I may have erred in my "ridiculous" statement. Dantz put the following information on their site about SCSI cards, Panther and D6 - "10.3 Panther Compatibility Please consult with your SCSI Card vendor for SCSI adapter compatibility with Panther. Your card vendor may have an update required for use with Panther. ATTO has released several SCSI driver updates which may improve overall stability. ATTO UL4D users with 10.3 (Panther) must use the 3.0.3 or later ATTO driver. Note: Currently Dantz does not support any Adaptec SCSI adapters for use in the Power Macintosh G5 or any Macintosh running Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. No changes to Retrospect will be necessary to support these adapters in Mac OS X 10.3 Panther when Adaptec provides full compatibility. At this time Dantz does not support the Initio Miles and BlueNote SCSI Adapters on Mac OS 1" The statement above says that D6 isn't fully compatible with any of the SCSI cards, with the possible exception of ATTO, but even there it's not conclusive because they say that ATTO has released new drivers which "may improve overall stability". Is D6 and Panther fully compatible with any SCSI cards? that is not a ridiculous question to ask? regards (Dave, I'm just venting, so please don't take this personal ), J Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacWright Posted May 11, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 11, 2004 Would Retrospect 5.1 work with Panther and my 29160 card? Did the problem start with Retrospect 6? thanks, j Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
9dotbox Posted May 12, 2004 Report Share Posted May 12, 2004 Jeff, In response to your question regarding recovering from the tapes. Yes. I have tried recovering from the tapes. That is when I originally discovered the problem. It was at that point that I turned Verification ON. Also, Dave makes a meaningful point refuting my conclusion that the problem lies in the READ, not the WRITE. It is uncertain wether the backups are any good at all. I'm going to switch cards ASAP, and let you know if the outcome is any better. I am now pretty disgusted with both Retrospect and Adaptec. Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacWright Posted May 12, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 12, 2004 Hi Joe- I just ordered an ATTO UL3S, hopefully I can report back with good news. What card are you buying? BTW... I can't even retrieve data from tapes that were written pre-panther and R6. Dantz- I realize that you are probably stuck between "a rock and a hard place" with this issue. But you could certainly help out a potentially bad PR situation by posting a warning on the R6 page(s) about compatibility issues with SCSI cards, in a more dominant position instead of the support database. To the end-user (myself included) this is an unhappy and expensive experience that could have been avoided. It's simply not enough to say that it's their fault, especially when all of the R6 literature and upgrade notice emails extolls the virtues of Panther and improved device compatibility. regards, J Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
9dotbox Posted May 13, 2004 Report Share Posted May 13, 2004 From everything I've been able to gather so far, the problems are confined to Panther? I'm going to down-rev to Jag first and see if things pan out. If not I'm going for the same ATTO UL3S Card. I appreciate your effort to be demure with Dantz, but my guess is they could make this work if they wanted to. If there were more of us, considering the expense of the items in question, this would be a class-action. Please respond back with your success with the new card. I'll do the same. Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natew Posted May 14, 2004 Report Share Posted May 14, 2004 Hi Unfortunately the problems with Adaptec cards are not something Dantz can fix. (Trust me we would have if it were possible.) Thanks Nate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacWright Posted May 14, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 14, 2004 Hi Nate, Why is it that tolisgroup (another backup software vendor) lists the adaptec 29160 and 39160 as compatible but not the Atto cards? This seems to point to software as the variable. http://www.tolisgroup.com/scsi_compat.html J Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmyJ Posted May 14, 2004 Report Share Posted May 14, 2004 Retrospect reads and writes data using various device transports, such as USB, IEEE 1394 or FireWire, ATAPI, and SCSI. Each device transport has its own requirements and limitations, but Retrospect can properly and completely back up data using any of these. Retrospect is not overly sensitive to errors on any transport; Retrospect simply sends commands and data to devices, following each transport's strict protocols. If unexpected errors are reported, Retrospect reports to the user. In a properly functioning system, all will be well. If, however, something is not operating properly (for example, a SCSI bus is not properly terminated or you are using old IEEE 1394 device drivers for a new 1394 device bridge), errors can be reported. The issue here is not one of sensitivity, but rather the nature of backup: if data is reported to not have been written or read properly, Retrospect must report it to the user, to avoid data loss. People from time to time contact Dantz to report that Retrospect does not work with a device, or that Retrospect reports an error, but that another application does not. There are many possible causes for this. First, and most frightening, it is possible that the other application is simply ignoring the error and that your data is not actually being backed up properly. Second, there are many ways to access devices, including hundreds of commands and series of commands an application can use to send data for backup. Another application many issue commands to a device in a different order, or in fact use entirely different ways of writing. This does not make Retrospect's access methods incorrect, or inappropriate (nor the other application's for that matter). Dantz spends tremendous resources on testing and qualifying various hardware with Retrospect. This does not mean that in some configurations other factors will not be able to interfere. The bottom line, though, is this: Retrospect is not fragile, or overly sensitive to hiccups in the computing environment. It is doing what you want a backup product to do: meticulously and carefully making sure that your data is backed up properly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacWright Posted May 14, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 14, 2004 Hi Amy, Thanks for your thoughtful response. And yes I am glad that Retrospect is meticulous about backup data. Since I've had a couple days to fight with this problem and simply buckle under and get a new Atto card, I've come to realize what the problem is. I received a promo email on Feb 10 about the upgrade to R6 and it declared Panther compatibility and improved performance. I waited on the upgraded for what I thought was a reasonable amount of time for the bugs to disappear. Then I went to the Dantz website and straight to the compatibility page ( http://dantz.com/index.php3?SCREEN=compatibility_list ) Put in AIT, SCSI, MacOSX and yes my device and system was listed, then I went to Adaptec and checked that the card was compatible with Panther also. Everything was going smoothly. I upgraded the computer installed R6 and then proceeded to discover the problem that R6 has with my Adaptec card. As an end user I thought that I had dodged the common problems by investigating first. But the answer to my problem is buried in your KnowledgeBase. So, the answer to avoiding this problem is not that the card is at fault or Retrospect but that the compatibility search that I first performed on the Dantz site should have identified the conflict. Dantz should extend the search to compatible cards as well as compatible devices. I'm glad that Retrospect is meticulous about making sure that my data is backed up properly, it should also be meticulous about qualifying compatible hardware and making that information known up front, and then we wouldn't need to be here. thanks, j Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacWright Posted May 17, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 17, 2004 New Atto UL3S (updated firmware and drivers), Sony External 400C AIT, 10.3.3 = no execution errors. Moving on........ j Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amurray Posted June 3, 2004 Report Share Posted June 3, 2004 hi after months of heart ache as a reseller we no longer support scsi ait3 backup under panther - full stop every update to everything tried (other than 10.3.4 - we lost the will a few weeks ago) numerous ait3 drives tried, atto ul4d/ul3s etc unacceptably poor results - i could bore u all with exact issues i believe firewire ait3 not that far away & we ourselves are not wasting more time/money until available good luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
9dotbox Posted June 8, 2004 Report Share Posted June 8, 2004 To those who are still interested. In the end I downgraded the entire configuration to OS9, and Retrospect 5.1, and low-and-behold, no errors! Once again The original Configuration was: - new dual G4 tower with OS 10.3.3. - The Adaptec 29160 card, with the built-in OSX drivers - and Sony AIT-3 tape library. This configuration DOES NOT WORK. DO NOT TRY IT. On word that the SCSI issues stemmed from problems with the 29160 under Panther (but not Jaguar), I downgraded to OS 10.2.8. This configuration DOES NOT WORK. DO NOT TRY IT. On further word from the Adaptec Web site, that version 1.2 of their driver is works on Mac OS up thru OS 10.2.2; I further downgraded to 10.2. This configuration DOES NOT WORK. DO NOT TRY IT. Finally in an attempt to determine if in fact their might be fundamental hardware problem with the Drive, or cable, or card - I downgraded to OS 9.2. and Retrospect 5.1. As I mentioned - works great, and is faster than all other configs. So, there is nothing wrong with my hardware, it's all in the software, and it's all "Qualified". The Dantz website leads one to believe that the problem is somehow related to OS 10.3. That is not the fact. It does not work at all under OSX. I don't know if the New Atto UL3S will work any better; it's been indicated in a prior post by "MacWright", that it does. I may give this a try at some time. Meanwhile, OS 9 is doing the trick. Unfortunately the resulting backups are NOT SUITABLE for full system restores of an OSX volume. But at least I have User Data safeguarded, and in the event of a total meltdown could reinstall the OS, and Apps, and restore the (considerable amounts of ) User Data. Time to move on too. I'm still flabbergasted that I've been caught in the bizarre Adaptec-Dantz limbo. Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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