Catalog Out Of Sync With CD-RWs (Strange Happenings)

[FuzzyJohn]

One of my customers reported to me a problem with Retrospect Professional v6 and backups to CD-RW media. The dreaded "Catalog Out Of Sync" message.

 

System Information:

OS: Windows 2000 Professional with SP-4

Drive: Sony CRX210 Master on Secondary IDE channel. No Slave present.

Software: Retrospect Professional v6.0.206

RDU.RPX: v3.8.106

Media: Sony CD-RW 4-10X

 

My findings after running about 30 backup jobs:

The volume backed up had enough data to cause Retrospect to span to a second CD. The backup performed OK and it was followed by a successful verify operation. However when I attempted to append another normal backup to this set I received the catalog out of sync message.

At this point I reduced the number of files in the backup so that Retrospect would no span to a second CD. There were no problems appending a second normal backup to this backup set.

I repeated the first backup (spanning CDs) with the CDs in reverse order. In my opinion if there was a media problem it would cause some sort of a failure while accessing the first CD. That was not the case though. This backup ended up just as the first one, with a catalog out of sync message when trying to append a second normal backup.

Next I repeated the backup with a volume big enough to cause Retrospect to span to a second CD. However this time I turned off the verification step. The backup completed. And I was able to append several normal backups to this set. I restored several files at random and the old DOS "FC" command confirmed that the restored files are identical to the original files.

I ran several backup jobs with the data compression enabled and disabled and the only thing that seemd to eliminate the catalog out of sync message was running the backup with the verify turned off.

 

I also ran several backup after customizing the Sony CD-RW drive with the same results.

 

It appears to me that Retrospect has a problem when the verify is turned on and the backup uses additional CD-RW media. My belief is that after the backup step is done, the verify step does not write to either the media or the catalog on the hard disk. But from the tests I conducted Retrospect failed consistently with a catalog out of sync message when the verify was turned on. Evidentally the verify step does something to the catalog to make it out of sync the next time a backup job is appended to the set.

 

On top of this, after I followed the directions to repair the catalog things seemd to turn even stranger. I made one backup on blank media to span 2 CDs using a newly created backup set. I had the verify turn on. At the end of the backup, the backup set properties showed one snapshot (dated 08/16/2003), one session (dated 08/16/2003) and 2 members. Attempting to append a second normal backup to this set cause the catalog out of sync message. At this point I proceeded to repair the catalog as instructed. At the end of the repair the backup set properties showed one snapshot (dated 07/28/2003) and five sessions (dated 07/28/2003, 07/29/2003, 07/30/2003, 07/31/2003 and 08/16/2003). I attempted to restore from this backup set and at the end of restore I got a message that the snapshot could not be found. The operations log had all kind of error messages. I could get the log file if more specifics are needed.

 

Now it is time for me to pop some Excedrin to alleviate the headache and I hope I will not have all kind of CD_RW related dreams tonight.

 

John

 

[paleolith]

I've done backups going to two DVDs, which should be handled the same as CDs, with no problems. However, I'm using DVD+R (not RW), whereas you are using CD-RW.

 

Are you able to rebuild the catalog from the CD-RW?

 

You should not have "all kinds" of errors in the log. A few "cannot read file (busy)", and a few compare errors (timestamp mismatch or file size mismatch) are OK. But if you have various other kinds of errors, investigate those.

 

Edward

[FuzzyJohn]

Quote:

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Edward Reid said:

Are you able to rebuild the catalog from the CD-RW?.

 

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Strange things are turning stranger. I discovered that my customer was using Easy CD Creator 5 Basic (on a different machine) to erase the CD-RWs before a recycle backup. The reason was that Retrospect takes so much longer to erase a CD. When Retrospect accessed the CD in question it did go thru an erase step which only lasted about 5 seconds.

Now... rebuilding the catalog from the media produced strange results. The rebuilt catalog contained sessions and snapshot not present in the original catalog. It also contained files that were not on the HD during the backup. All I can say is that since the CD-RW was not fully erased, somehow Retrospect accessed portions of a previous catalog on the CD.

I know... I should allow Retrospect to do a full erase of the CDs. But I think that the minimal erase should work. After all it does seem so when using tapes.

I did instruct my customer to not use Easy CD Creator anymore to erase the CDs and let Retrospect do it instead. So far I have not heard any complaints.

 

Quote:

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Edward Reid said:

You should not have "all kinds" of errors in the log. A few "cannot read file (busy)", and a few compare errors (timestamp mismatch or file size mismatch) are OK. But if you have various other kinds of errors, investigate those.

 

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All the errors that I mentioned occurred during the catalog rebuilding operation or during appending to the backup set. If my thoughts regarding Retrospect trying to access data from a previous catalog still on the CD are correct (see above) that would explain the errors.

[natew]

Hi

 

As slow as it I would have Retrospect do all of the disk formatting. In fact Retrospect runs best on disks that have never been formatted by another program.

 

Retrospect does a check on the entire disk during an erase to ensure data integrity. Long yes but as this is your backup Dantz Engineers figure it is worth the wait.

 

Nate