Retrospect hangs trying to analyze catalog file for grooming

[someguy]

I need to groom an MS-SQL backup set and am having one helluva time doing it. It hangs when I let it run proactively, it hangs when I try to schedule a groom job, and it hangs when I run a groom job manually... Retrospect window turns white and stops responding and the Windows task manager shows two Retrospect applications, both not responding, and it will hang for literally a week at a time if I let it (I end up having to end task on them so I can continue backups for the other clients.)

 

This is a dedicated backup server, Windows 2003, 4GB of RAM, two dual-core CPUs, with Retrospect Multi-server 7.6.111. (Incidentally, it looks like Retrospect only ever uses one core, as my CPU usage never goes above 25% even when it's obviously pegged and unresponsive.) I have rebuilt the catalog file several times to no avail. Catalog file is only about 30MB, so I don't know why it would take so long to process, especially after being newly rebuilt.

 

I read something in another post that might indicate a corrupted .rbu file due to ending task on the application? But I can't search for "rbu" in the forums because it's only 3 letters long... and the word "corrupt" gives me way too many unrelated results to sift through... not sure where to look any more.

[Mayoff]

Actually it is a corrupt .rdb file you should be searching for. You can use the google search on the right of the forum.

 

Try doing a backup sent transfer of the data to a new backup set and then groom the new set. This would avoid any possible corruption when trying to groom.

[someguy]

yeah, I knew it was one of those 3-letter words

 

thanks, I didn't see the google field before, I've been using the built-in search at the top.

 

I'm almost out of disk space on the backup array, and the transfer set would exceed the available space (pretty much the reason I need to groom - low disk space.) Am I in a catch-22, or can I somehow transfer just the newest snapshots?

[Mayoff]

Yes, you can do a snapshot transfer of just the most recent snapshots. I can't remember if that will include the databases, I think it does.

[someguy]

excellent - so, basically transfering the needed snapshots to a new backup set was a sort of manual grooming operation - I was able to recycle the old backup set and hopefully got rid of the broken pieces during the transfer. Thanks for the help.