VXA-2 Firewire autoloader disappears during backup

[etiffany]

Lately, my Retrospect backups have been failing when (as near as I can tell) a new tape is required after writing (and verifying) many GBs. Somewhere in the process of unloading/loading the drive or searching the tape library Retrospect loses track of the VXA-2 autoloader and shows no devices in the Devices window. Doing a manual device scan from the Environment tab loops forever (stop button has no effect) and Retrospect must be forcibly quit.

 

Upon relaunch Retrospect sees the VXA-2 drive and library correctly.

 

This problem only recently began, and started with a recent version of Single Server 7.5 and continues with 7.6.111. In addition, the problem happens when backing up a MacOS X client, using either 6.1.130 or 6.2.229 client sw.

 

My config:

 

WinXP Home, SP2

Retrospect Single Server 7.6.111

1.25GB RAM

 

VXA-2 drive firmware 2143

VXA 1-U autoloader firmware V1A110

 

I see this error in the event viewer, which seems related (though in typical WinXP fashion, contains no real useful info):

 

Event Type: Error

Event Source: sbp2port

Event Category: None

Event ID: 9

Date: 7/22/2008

Time: 9:56:22 AM

User: N/A

Computer: HP783C

Description:

The device, , did not respond within the timeout period.

 

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Data:

0000: 0f 00 20 00 01 00 7a 00 .. ...z.

0008: 00 00 00 00 09 00 04 c0 .......À

0010: 00 00 00 00 02 01 00 00 ........

0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........

0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........

0028: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ

0030: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ

0038: 80 70 00 00 00 00 00 00 €p......

0040: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........