Incomplete communication with tape drive after script stopped

[twickland]

I was running a backup script when the tape member became full, and Retrospect ejected the tape from our HP StorageWorks Ultrium 3000 SAS drive. I had already determined that I was going to begin a new media set when this happened, so I stopped the script execution. All seemed to be fine.

 

Perhaps relevant: I was also running a catalog rebuild on a disk media set in another thread.

 

I then inserted a cleaning tape, which ejected automatically when done. I prepared a new blank LTO tape cartridge, inserted it in the drive, and went to the Storage Devices window to check on the status. Retrospect showed the tape drive as "Busy" and empty. I powered the drive down and back up with no change. I attempted to eject the tape cartridge through Retrospect, which seemed to accept the command but to no effect. I quit and relaunched the console, which now showed the tape drive as "Running" and empty, though it did now display the time of the just-performed cleaning operation. The console also was missing all the past backups from the most recent 12 days.

 

I then successfully stopped the catalog rebuild and attempted to stop the Retrospect engine. After 20 minutes or so with no sign of slowing down, I force-quit the engine. Upon restarting, things seemed to be OK. Past backups appeared as expected, the communication with the tape drive seemed correct, and the new media backup I ran completed successfully.

 

I attach a copy of the relevant section of the operations log.

 

[Don Lee]

This sounds suspiciously like something that I have seen. In my experience it looks like a delay in the retro engine for several minutes after any drive cleaning operation.

 

See here:

http://forums.retrospect.com/index.php?/topic/147857-3-minute-delay-after-tape-drive-cleaning-console-hang/page__fromsearch__1