thiggins Posted March 25, 2010 Report Share Posted March 25, 2010 I am running the latest version of Restrospect (8.1 build 626) on Mac OS X Server 10.5.8. I had one backup script that was alternating between 2 media sets ( located on separate firewire drives). This script has been running for quite awhile. One media set had 378 backups, the other has 222 backups. Because we were down to 40 GB remaining on Media set A I wanted to enable grooming to make room for future backups. Every time I made a change to the grooming policy the engine would crash. Since we had made so many backups I thought I would try to keep the last 300 backups (to maximize my data retention) but the settings would never stick on Media set A. So I decide to try the Retrospect defined policy on Media set B - this sent Retrospect into a tailspin of which I cannot seem to recover - the engine now crashes constantly. The last activity I saw before the constant crashing was "Retrieving snapshot" "Restore Completed" which I stopped because I thought it might be restoring data from the old backup. I have seen references in the forums that enabling grooming is causing crashes but no resolution. Any suggestions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted March 25, 2010 Report Share Posted March 25, 2010 This is a nasty known bug. We are trying to fix it. In my experience you can not turn on grooming after the set contains data, turing on the grooming option causes the crash Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thiggins Posted March 25, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 25, 2010 Now that I am in this position how do I get out of it? The engine will not stay running long enough to do anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted March 26, 2010 Report Share Posted March 26, 2010 I would "hide" the catalog file for the set so that Retrospect can not access it. Then start the engine and perform a catalog rebuild for that set. You can then transfer it's contents from the current set to a new set that has grooming enabled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thiggins Posted March 31, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 31, 2010 Thanks for the hint Robin. I moved the catalogs and have rebuilt them, but I don't have the space to copy the set on the same media. Is it possible to move the data into the groomed set and rebuild the catalog (on the same disk)? I did try a copy media set script on another install and there was a disturbing lack of feedback during the process - I ended up quitting the copy script and just pointed the script to a new groomed backup set. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dskincaid Posted April 28, 2010 Report Share Posted April 28, 2010 Robin, when I called EMC Tech Support a month ago, I was told a patch for this problem and others I described would be out in April. Do we have any update on updates seeing as there are only a few days left in April? Thanks dk MIT Cambridge, MA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roarkh Posted May 6, 2010 Report Share Posted May 6, 2010 I just found this thread and it has me a little concerned. Earlier today I enabled the option for grooming, under the Options tab of my Media Set, I set it to keep 10 backups. Immediately after setting the option Retrospect started running very slowly, it kept saying it was restoring backup sets. After a while it finished, the engine seems to be running fine now, I don't think anything was actually pruned so I'm not exactly sure what Retrospect was doing. The media set in question has a few months of backups on it, am I likely to have problems when Retrospect runs out of disk space and attempts to actually perform the prune? Can I avoid the problems by setting the set back to No Grooming now (before a prune is run) and waiting for an update? I'd appreciate any feedback, thanks in advance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maser Posted May 6, 2010 Report Share Posted May 6, 2010 When you first enable grooming for a set that didn't have it on, it "churns" through the catalog file so it can display all your backups in "Past Backups". This is normal. Actual *grooming* won't happen until you either run (almost) out of space in your media set or you run a grooming script. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roarkh Posted May 6, 2010 Report Share Posted May 6, 2010 That is what I assumed, my real question now is in regards to the bug mentioned in the first post in this thread. Am I likely to run into problems when it decides to groom because I enabled this option a couple months after creating the storage set? And if so, can I avoid the problem by disabling grooming again before a groom is initially performed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maser Posted May 6, 2010 Report Share Posted May 6, 2010 Don't know about that. I attempted this when I saw the bug posted and could never reproduce the issue (turning on grooming after the set contains data) If you didn't *crash* after turning on grooming, then you didn't hose the catalog file. So, in theory, you should be able to groom without issue. If you are concerned that you'll crash, I'd do what Robin suggested: Make a new media set with Grooming turned on initially, and "copy media set" from your current set to the new media set. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roarkh Posted May 6, 2010 Report Share Posted May 6, 2010 Great, thanks for your answer. It's good to know that this bug does not affect everyone. It looks like the first poster had problems immediately that I did not experience. I just wanted to make sure all my bases were covered. Thanks again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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