Retrospecty 6.1 Freezing During Backup Mac OS 10.4.5

[RandySK]

I am running Retrospect 6.1.126. It backs up several computers overnight. Recently, it has started freezing, requiring a force quit to exit. The force quit screen says the application is not responding. At first, it was stuck on the very first file. Then it was getting stuck on the invisible 'etc' folder. As I add each of these to the list of excluded files, it just freezes somewhere else. What could cause the program to lock up like this? There has been no change to the hard drives, scripts, or computers being used. I am running Mac OS 10.4.5. Help!

 

Randy Kaempen

[natew]

Hi

 

Backup device please?

How much RAM is in the backup server?

 

Thanks

Nate

[DavidHoffman]

I am running Retrospect 6.1.126 too. Mac G4, backing up internal ATA drives and external firewire to an external LaCie DDS4 drive.

 

Since upgrading to 10.4.5 from 10.3.9 I've had Retrospect failing to backup. I upgraded the app to the current 6.1.126 and installed the driver update to try to fix this. Now I can't get Retrospect to run at all- if I try to run a script or restore Retrospect gives me the spinning pizza wheel and I have to force quit. If I do nothing with the app it seems fine - all the menus and panes open and I can get the log, see the devices etc - just can't run any tapes.

 

Any suggestions welcome...

 

David Hoffman

[DavidHoffman]

I wrote in my last post

 

>Since upgrading to 10.4.5 from 10.3.9

>I've had Retrospect failing to backup.

 

I'm beginning to think this is a scsi problem.

 

More if & when.

 

David Hoffman

[DavidHoffman]

I wrote:

 

>I'm beginning to think this is a scsi problem

 

But that no longer seems so likely. I've restarted from a 10.3.9 drive and I am still getting the same problem. It seems that the upgrade to 10.4 is a coincidence.

 

The app seems to break at the point where it tries to actually run a tape, on a restore it does all the searching, only freezing at the end of that process.

 

I've upgraded the firmware for the Atto scsi card and updated all the Retrospect software. I've run disk permissions and Applejack but theer's no change. Are there any pref files I should try dumping?

 

Or any other suggestions that might lead me to a diagnosis?

 

Thanks

 

 

David Hoffman

[twickland]

Are you backing up to one or multiple backup sets? If only one, you might try creating a new test backup set and see if you can successfully back up to it. The symptoms you describe don't particularly sound like those of a corrupt backup set, but this would be an easy test to perform.

 

To see if the problem is with the config files, quit Retrospect, drag the Retrospect folder out of /Library/Preferences, and relaunch the application. This will force Retrospect to create new config files. You could then try backing up either to a new test backup set or one of your existing backup sets.

[DavidHoffman]

Thanks

 

I'm backing up and restoring with multiple sets but I always get the same behaviour. I've tried 4 sets from about a dozen but with same result every time. The only difference is that Retrospect seems to be dying a lot sooner now than when I first had this problem. It doesn't crash unless I try to backup or restore, it sits happily in the dock for hours andthe panels are all opening perfectly.

 

I found a Retrospect folder in the Library/Preferences in my user area which contained a file LaunchRetroPref. At the root level the prefs/Retrospect folder held:

 

Retro.Config (6.0)

Retro.Config (5.0)

Operations Log

Retro.Icons (6.0)

LaunchRetroHlper

retrorunfile

Retro.Icons (5.0)

and 13 files of the kind "Retrospect.error.log.ba86cd8b" but all from more than a year ago. Pulling these two folders has made no difference, Retrospect stops resonding in a minute or so after attempting a restore or backup.

 

Oddly although Force Quit is showing "not responding" the cursor shows the two rotating cogwheels when the cusror is not on the Retrospect window but the pizza wheel when it is on the Retrospect window.

 

It is still crashing when I start from a 10.3.9 drive.

 

David Hoffman

[rhwalker]

Just out of curiosity, what RDU are you running? I turned in a bug report under our support contract that Retrospect 6.1.126 with RDU 6.1.3.101 causes hang at 100% CPU at the instant that the device scan starts (after the list of files to back up has been collected from a network client). I saw it on Mac OS X server 10.4.3, the problem was reproducible and disappeared when I reverted to RDU 6.1.2.102. I note on the Windows list that people are reporting similar problems, and I wonder if some of the Windows driver code migrated into the Mac RDU. I've since updated our server to 10.4.4 and 10.4.5 (still RDU 6.1.2.102), and no hang there either.

 

FYI, here's our configuration:

 

Retrospect 6.1.126 with RDU 6.1.3.101 causes hang at 100% CPU

Retrospect 6.1.126 with RDU 6.1.2.102 has no problems.

 

Xserve G5 single processor 2.0 GHz 2 GB RAM, Mac OS Server 10.4.3

 

Tape backup to Exabyte VXA-2 1x10 1u PacketLoader LVD SCSI-3 with ethernet admin

VXA-2 firmware 210B, autoloader firmware A10B, ethernet admin firmware V10E0A (all latest)

ATTO UL4D dual-channel SCSI card (driver 3.50, firmware 1.50 - latest)

 

Apple Hardware RAID card controls 3 x 250 GB SATA Apple Drive Modules

Apple Hardware RAID configured as 50 GB RAID 5 OS disk/volume

and as 417 GB RAID 5 user data disk/volume

 

Attached to the same SCSI channel as the Exabyte tape drive is a 75 GB 10000 RPM Seagate Cheetah LVD SCSI-3 drive. SoftRAID 3.3 controls a RAID 1 mirror for the OS volume whose two members are the Seagate Cheetah SCSI drive and the 50 GB RAID 5 LUN on the Apple Hardware RAID.

 

Regards, Russ

[DavidHoffman]

Thanks Russ

 

I'm using 6.1.3.101, I'll try to see if I can find a version of 6.1.2.102 but I don't think this is the problem.

 

I've been doing some more tests - & not a great deal of productive work ;-(

 

There are 5 drives that I am backing up regularly, restores and backups with 4 seem OK, the problem only happens with one of them - the main drive of course. That's the normal startup drive on the G4 and I get the this problem whether I am running from it or running from a different startup drive. Any operation involving that drive for backup or restore causes the crash. There are many backup sets, some from a year ago and I get a crash restoring this specific drive from all/any of them or trying to back it up any of them.

 

I'm really puzzled - the crash occurs before the actual drive has been accessed or the actual tape has run - it's crashing on the searching stage so it can't be a problem with the hardware (I think). But the fact that it happens with all the backup sets makes me think that they can't ALL be faulty (most haven't been touched for ages).

 

I've done all the permission repairs and run Applejack but I'm well past the limits of my knowledge here!

 

David Hoffman

[DavidHoffman]

OK - just tried the 6.1.2.102 but there's no difference.

 

David Hoffman

[twickland]

Quote:

---

There are 5 drives that I am backing up regularly, restores and backups with 4 seem OK, the problem only happens with one of them - the main drive of course.

 

---

Gosh, that's a pretty significant piece of information you've been withholding. Sounds like something may be wrong with that drive or its interface.

 

Have you tried booting from one of the other drives and performing a full verify/repair using Disk Utility or Disk Warrior?

 

On what drive are your backup set catalogs located? How about the Retrospect app? If you copy these to another drive and boot/run the app from that drive, do you still have the same problem?

[DavidHoffman]

>Gosh, that's a pretty significant piece of information you've been withholding. Sounds

>like something may be wrong with that drive or its interface.

 

Yes, sorry. Not withholding at all - but the drive that's giving a problem is the first one to be accessed for backup and is the one I need to do a restore from so Retrospect just dies as soon as I start. I only thought to try backing up/restoring another as a test yesterday.

 

>Have you tried booting from one of the other drives and performing a full verify/repair using

>Disk Utility or Disk Warrior?

 

Yes. Booting from other drives makes no difference. I've checked with both DW and DU and also Applejack. All reports normal, everything else running OK. I don't think it's the drive but might it be the catalogs for that drive?

 

>On what drive are your backup set catalogs located? How about the Retrospect app?

 

The problem is with the main drive (Macintosh HD) and that's where the app and the catalogs are.

 

>If you copy these to another drive and boot/run the app from that drive, do you still

>have the same problem?

 

I'll try that later today, thanks.

 

David Hoffman

[NWelch]

Quote:

---

I am running Retrospect 6.1.126 too. Mac G4, backing up internal ATA drives and external firewire to an external LaCie DDS4 drive.

 

 

---

 

My problem was identical, and was very frustrating. However, I found out via a Mac forum that LaCie power adaptors can fail after a short time (lights on etc, but not enough power to run the drives properly), so I purchased a replacement adaptor (Power Supply) from LaCie. Now everything is working as normal, In fact I bought a second replacement adaptor for my LaCie Big Disk that "died" a year ago. That too is now working perfectly. Also, the new adaptors are of a higher grade than the originals.

[DavidHoffman]

I've heard a lot about LaCie psu failures too but that's not my answer. I have an external WD firewire drive (3 partitions, backing up two) and there's no problem there. It's the original Apple internal ATA drive that's my problem.

 

David Hoffman

[DavidHoffman]

From earlier:

 

>>If you copy these to another drive and boot/run the app from that drive, do you still

>>have the same problem?

 

>I'll try that later today, thanks.

 

Tried that, exactly the same.

 

Back to the usual startup drive and I'm seeing some odd behaviour. As the backups are not working the tape drive is switched off. Normally if a scheduled backup starts with the drive unavailable I get an error message & Retrospect quits. This morning I came in to find Retrospect running and the drive off. So I turned it on and a backup run began.

 

There are 3 drives to backup and it copied the 12,000+ files (1.7 gig) needed from drive 1, got to the 'updating catalog' stage and then the app hung. Force quit showed it as 'not responding'. I did not force quit but just clicked the Retrospect icon in the dock and after a minute Retrospect picked itself up and carried on from where it had left off. This happened a couple more times but it did finish the backup. The log shows nothing unusual.

 

Encouraged by this I tried a 'restore' (there's one file I need to retrieve and which is only on one backup set). Retrospect hung again (not responding) almost as soon as I began so I again clicked it in the dock and it continued for a while but this time when it hung again I could not restart it.

 

I've restarted off another drive with Retrospect and the catalogs copied on to it and I'm seeing the same behaviour. Although I've had dozens of Retrospect freezes over the last few days I only have 2 crash logs, one from today and one from 15 Feb. Sadly these logs are far beyond my understanding...

 

Any suggestions welcome!

 

David Hoffman

[PeterMarsh]

Since upgrading the servers from 10.4.2 and beyond, running Retrospect causes a collection of catastrophic failures on at least two of my client's file servers. Not only does Retrospect crash, but it brings down the whole server to boot. When you get going again, the catalogue has also been damaged and you have to repair this again to get retrospect to run again, only to crash the server and continue the vicious cycle.

 

Is this yet another Apple vs the little guys war going on or is this the official end of the line for Retrospect and Macintosh? Please let me know because I don't have the time of day to second guess what is happening here and interface with my clients who have systems that did work until a few months ago and now a backup system that apart from not backing up, crashes their server.

 

To be helpful, the details are: Servers - G4 and G5 both with SCSI cards and external DAT tape drives {Sony}

Software: Retrospect Server version 6.1.124

[twickland]

Re Peter Marsh:

 

What SCSI host adapter cards are you using? What are the driver and firmware versions for these cards?

 

When you say the servers crashed, do you mean with a kernel panic?

[nekr0phage]

Hi Peter,

 

You currently have 3 posts total, and they are all the same speculative drivel. Please do not spam the same problem all over the forum. You already have a thread started with this topic, stick with that thread and provide us with some useful information.

 

Thanks.

 

 

Peter's thread:

http://forums.dantz.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=68167

[zorbatcho]

Just a word to say I've similar problems since the 10.4.5 upgrade.

 

I'm running Retrospect 6.1.126 + Driver 6.1.3.101 on a G5 2*2Ghz. I backup to the tape device Dell PowerVault LTO 110T. My SCSI host adapter is an Adaptec PowerDomain 39160 (driver 1.3b2, since 1.2 provided with Mac Os X leads to a kernel panic at startup with the tape device): I know this card is not supported, but it is was working fine for me thru many backups... until the last system upgrade.

 

Since 10.4.5, the backup stops somewhere during or just after the final verification process. Cancelling the backup freezes the application and leads to the spinning wheel after a moment, and some times later, other applications may begin to hang as well: Disk utility, activity monitor, System info, and some others. No kernel panic, but I need to force reboot. This appened everytime I tried to make a backup. If I launch a backup verification later, it hangs as well at some point.

 

I've currently removed others SCSI devices that were connected on the card and I'm performing a verification test (quite long, however). I'll post the result on this forum when terminated.

 

I'd like to know if the problem comes from the Retrospect software, or from the SCSI card, before I take the decision to change it for an ATTO UL3D. Since other people there got problems with an ATTO card, I'm suspecting the software first.

 

Hope this will help to fix that problem.

[CallMeDave]

Quote:

---

I know this card is not supported...

 

---

 

Then what is your question?

 

> I'd like to know if the problem comes from the Retrospect software, or from the SCSI card

 

It's the SCSI card.

 

> I'm suspecting the software first

 

You're suspecting that unsupported hardware is not the cause of the failure of software that specifically requires hardware other then what you're using?

 

Wow. That's pretty nervy.

 

Dave

[DavidHoffman]

I'm a bit unclear - is this the Retrospect 'official' support forum? I'm grateful for the suggestions so far but I've not really made any progress. Retropspect is still non functional and I can't see any route forward that might get it working. If this forum is simply mutual support from fellow users then maybe I need to get some more consistent help from Retrospect itself - where would I go for that? If this forum *is* Retrospect then can I ask for a bit of attention?

 

thanks

 

David Hoffman

[CallMeDave]

Quote:

---

is this the Retrospect 'official' support forum?

 

---

 

No.

 

From Mayoff's "Welcome to the Forum" message:

Our community-based forum is not an official means of contacting EMC support. If you have an urgent question or would like to discuss a specific Retrospect topic with a EMC technical support representative, please go to:

 

http://www.dantz.com/en/support/contact.dtml

(althought the above url will redirect to http://www.emcinsignia.com/en/support/contact.dtml)

 

When you contact tech support, be prepared to provide them with more specific information then you've provided to the Forum readers. For example, the only information you've given about your host adapter is:

 

> I've upgraded the firmware for the Atto scsi card ...

 

No mention of which Atto card it is, and nothing about what version of the firmware it is now, or what software driver is being used.

 

Nothing about make & model of the tape drive you're using, or the model of Macintosh that's at issue (if I missed any of this, apologies; for sure that information is not part of your original message). The tech support engineers are going to need to know all of that.

 

David

[DavidHoffman]

I've tried to give clear info and to give all that will bear on the problem. I'm looking for a solution, not to set a cryptic puzzle! If it helps -though I don't think it will:

 

Atto Express UL3D scsi card with the current firmware from the Atto site

driver 3.2.0

Name: ATTO,ExpressPCIProUL3D

Type: scsi-2

Bus: PCI

Slot: SLOT-4

Vendor ID: 0x1000

Device ID: 0x0020

Subsystem Vendor ID: 0x117c

Subsystem ID: 0x0007

ROM Revision: 1.6.6f0

Revision ID: 0x0001

 

The DDS4 is a LaCie which has a Seagate mech inside.

Manufacturer: SEAGATE

Model: SX19171W

Revision: 9D29

It's the only device on that bus and is properly terminated. I can't give you the model number because it's busy just now but it does other stuff just fine & I have no reason to believe it faulty.

 

The Mac is a G4 Quicksilver 1gig DP with 1.75 meg ram running 10.4.5.

Machine Name: Power Mac G4

Machine Model: PowerMac3,6

CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (2.1)

Number Of CPUs: 2

CPU Speed: 1 GHz

L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB

L3 Cache (per CPU): 1 MB

Memory: 1.75 GB

Bus Speed: 167 MHz

Boot ROM Version: 4.4.8f2

Serial Number: CK249HZGNLR

 

Thanks for the support link.

 

David Hoffman

[DavidHoffman]

I wrote

Quote:

---

I can't give you the model number

 

---

 

But then realised that I could & forgot to delete that bit. Sorry.

 

David Hoffman

[CallMeDave]

Your original message noted:

>Since upgrading to 10.4.5 from 10.3.9

>I've had Retrospect failing to backup.

 

Then your further testing showed that 10.3.9 also doesn't work anymore.

 

This suggests that your configuration _was_ working reliably at some point. And although the 10.4 OS update may not have been the cause, can you think of anything else that you did at the same time that might be related?

 

The software/hardware apparently worked before, but now the same software/hardware fails. Is there anything different about your configuration?

 

Dave