Incorrect tapes names and possible overwriting tapes

[James Quintin]

Hi all,

I have a Dell TL2000 attached to my server using Retrospect 11. Its been fine for years but has started to show some odd behaviour. The TL2000 is set to do the cleaning automatically, so Retrospect shouldn't even ask, but for soem reason retrospect is showing that three of the tapes in the library are cleaning tapes! When they move to the drive it can see them for what they really are.

The other problem is that retrospect seems to have used one tape twice... I started a new backup set for some data and the first tape was fine, second tape was fine, but it seems to have re-used the second tape as the third tape in the backup set! They are all barcoded, so I don't know whats going on. I've attached a screen grab.

Has retrospect wiped the second tape...?

Thanks!
James

 

[Lennart_T]

8 hours ago, James Quintin said:

Has retrospect wiped the second tape...?

I do not think so. Retrospect goes a long way making sure it does not overwrite a tape. The label is only for your information, it isn't really used by Retrospect to distinguish different tapes from each other.

Either the two tapes has identical labels or the barcode reader acted up and misread one of the labels. (That is my theory. at least.)

Your second screen shot does not show more than the first tape. Where are the other two?

I remember the bug where Retrospect marked more than one slot as containing a cleaning tape. I do not know if it was fixed as I no longer work for the company that used a tape library. You should be able to mark the slot as NOT containing a cleaning tape, but I no longer remember how. Sorry. 

[James Quintin]

Thanks for the reply,

The tape in the drive is actually the one that Restrospect wants (Barcode ending 24L), but is showing as from a different backup set! Most odd. Its showing 1-PMI Backup Set in the library, but not the other two as its misread the one in the drive, and thinks 3-PMI backup is on same tape as 24L

Is it worth uninstalling and reinstalling retrospect? I can't afford to upgrade to the latest version (£900!)

Cheers

JQ

 

[Lennart_T]

19 minutes ago, James Quintin said:

Is it worth uninstalling and reinstalling retrospect?

That would not help as all preferences, barcode data, catalog files etc would not change.

You may want to try this:

https://www.retrospect.com/au/support/kb/clearing_library_barcode_information

[James Quintin]

Hey,

Yeah I've already done that and it just thought they were cleaning tapes again...

Maybe the TL200 is dusty and needs a physical clean?

Q

[Nigel Smith]

On 9/19/2019 at 8:29 AM, James Quintin said:

but for soem reason retrospect is showing that three of the tapes in the library are cleaning tapes!

Not quite.

It is showing three of the library slots are designated as cleaning tape slots -- it doesn't matter what tapes are in there, as you've seen, it just blocks out those slots during a device scan and tries to use their contents when a clean is triggered. Check that you haven't inadvertently marked off two more cleaning slots than you want...

I don't think RS has "knowingly" wiped the second tape, since it is still listed as holding data on the set's Properties. "Unknowingly"? That would depend on whether it's dumb enough to only (mis-)read the barcode and not sanity-check the tape header before proceeding...

Something's out of whack though. I think my first move would be to Disable Barcode Scans in Retrospect's tape library properties window then do a Scan Selected or even move the tapes in and out of the drive manually and see if that gives better results. Try opening/closing the library door *before* doing Scan Selected -- if it works like the Mac version it'll put all tape names into italics until they've been scanned, so you can easily see what has and hasn't been done.