fotmasta Posted October 11, 2010 Report Share Posted October 11, 2010 It just vanishes as a device without warning. Sometimes 10 times an hour. It comes back if I rescan-all. Sometimes this happens during a backup. The times that it actually doesn't disappear, no files are ever written to it. v.8.2 Exabyte VXA DC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhwalker Posted October 11, 2010 Report Share Posted October 11, 2010 What interface? SCSI? Firewire? If SCSI, what HBA card? What firmware version for the HBA card? Any other devices on the same SCSI channel? If Firewire, any other devices on the Firewire chain? What firmware level for the Exabyte drive? Have you tried running the Exabyte diagnostics? Russ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotmasta Posted October 11, 2010 Author Report Share Posted October 11, 2010 What interface? FW800 single device What firmware level for the Exabyte drive? 3233 Have you tried running the Exabyte diagnostics? 100 %OK Recent changes and possible clues- 1. Change of hardware from G5 to MacPro 2. Upgrade from 8.1 to 8.2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhwalker Posted October 12, 2010 Report Share Posted October 12, 2010 Something's inconsistent between your signature block: Retrospect 8.1 build 622 and your statement of your Retrospect version: v8.2 I'll ignore that for the moment and assume that you are on the "current" 8.2 build. Exabyte VXA DCFW800 single device What firmware level for the Exabyte drive? 3233 Really? I take that to mean a VXA-1 drive, right? The firmware level doesn't match any of the VXA-2 or VXA-3 rev levels. That's a bit old. Recent changes and possible clues-1. Change of hardware from G5 to MacPro 2. Upgrade from 8.1 to 8.2 Did it have this problem with 8.1? It might be useful to try a regression test to Retrospect 8.1. Also, your G5 to MacPro involved two major changes (ignoring the PPC to Intel processor change): Did your G5 have FW 400? Or FW 800? And, you probably did a Mac OS jump, too, at the same time, right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotmasta Posted October 12, 2010 Author Report Share Posted October 12, 2010 -Updated signature- Tape Drive identified as VXA320 tape1 - Vendor : EXABYTE tape1 - Product ID: VXA-3a tape1 - Firmware : 3233 What would be a clean way to drop back to 8.1? The problem didn't exist in 8.1 The G5 was FW800 OS went from 10.5 to 10.6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhwalker Posted October 12, 2010 Report Share Posted October 12, 2010 Tape Drive identified as VXA320tape1 - Vendor : EXABYTE tape1 - Product ID: VXA-3a tape1 - Firmware : 3233 Ok, makes sense now. What would be a clean way to drop back to 8.1? The problem didn't exist in 8.1 Um, more accurately, if I understand your updated problem statement, the problem didn't exist in Retrospect 8.1.622 on a PPC G5 running Mac OS 10.5.x, but does exist in Retrospect 8.2.0 (399) on an Intel MacPro running Mac OS 10.6.4. I don't see any indication that testing has been done running Retrospect 8.1.622 on an Intel MacPro running Mac OS 10.6.4, or that testing has been done running Retrospect 8.2.0 (399) on a PPC G5 running Mac OS 10.5.x. That makes it a bit hard to identify which variable is the cause. As for leaping back to Retrospect 8.1, you'd really have to do an uninstall of 8.2 followed by an install of 8.1. I'd suggest saving away copies of your catalogs and the config80.dat file, too, so that you could go back to the current setup if things go horribly wrong, and you might have to rebuild your catalogs under 8.1 and you might have to recreate your scripts, etc., for 8.1, starting from a clean config80.dat file (unless you have a copy saved away from when you were running 8.1). Some people have reported odd behavior on an upgrade from 8.1 to 8.2 if the old config80.dat preferences file was carried forward (perhaps corrupted in 8.1?), so there's no reason to believe that similar issues wouldn't occur going backwards. From what I have seen, though, 8.2 is a big improvement over 8.1 (though still not without warts). Your disappearing tape drive is odd, and is the first time I have heard of this specific problem. A bit more testing might help narrow down which of the many variables in your case are responsible. We don't have the Firewire Exabyte drive (only the SCSI version, on an ATTO HBA), so I haven't seen your particular issue and can't test for it. You seem to be doing all things right, though. Again, more testing is needed to identify the culprit trigger for this bug. Russ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniels Posted October 13, 2010 Report Share Posted October 13, 2010 Actually I am running 8.2.0(399) on a PowerPC G4 with 2 GB of RAM running 10.5.8 Since so many variables changed like Russ said it is hard to figure out which one actually caused the problem. I would first try 8.2.0(399) on the G5 and see if the problem exists. I would then do a clean install of 8.2 on the Intel and see what happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotmasta Posted October 13, 2010 Author Report Share Posted October 13, 2010 Test results- G5 with 10.5.8 and v8.2 exhibits the same symptoms. Next step will be MacPro 10.6.4 with re-install (clean as can be) of 8.2 Then, back to 8.1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotmasta Posted October 14, 2010 Author Report Share Posted October 14, 2010 Here's the result post-uninstall-clean install of 8.2 Drive disappeared. Here's the result from the log- stucFinished: [EXABYTE|VXA-3a|3233] incorrect scsiServiceResponse 0x700945f0, scsiStatus 0x70094610 stucFinished: [0|0|0] transaction result 0x700a6bd0 stucFinished: [EXABYTE|VXA-3a|3233] incorrect scsiServiceResponse 0x700945f0, scsiStatus 0x70094650 stucFinished: [0|0|0] transaction result 0x700a6bd0 !Couldn't erase tape, error -102 ( trouble communicating) I Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniels Posted October 14, 2010 Report Share Posted October 14, 2010 Based on the tests and log you should follow the steps in Retrospect KB article 9733 and this should alleviate the problem before going back to 8.1 You will find a link to the article under Latest Articles after clicking "See more" link on the previous page. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotmasta Posted October 26, 2010 Author Report Share Posted October 26, 2010 After kb article 9733, drive no longer disappears. However, backing up to this drive is not possible. The backup runs without writing a single file. 208 files, 100 MB, ran for 22 minutes. Under Storage Devices, the tape was visible and named correctly. While the backup is running the tape name is blank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniels Posted October 26, 2010 Report Share Posted October 26, 2010 I would try doing a test with a couple of files and seeing what happens. If the files are not written then it sounds like you may have a hardware problem with the drive. Also when was the last time you actually cleaned the drive because I have seen dirty heads causing problems? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotmasta Posted October 26, 2010 Author Report Share Posted October 26, 2010 I woke up in the middle of the night and realized there's a chance the retro.ini may have been overwritten and the new line wasn't present. Let me verify that and retry the two file test. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotmasta Posted October 27, 2010 Author Report Share Posted October 27, 2010 Backup completed successfully! But, in the logs there's this- + Executing Unloading media... at 10/26/10 10/26/10 4:53:05 PM: Execution completed successfully + Normal backup using Backup Assistant - 10/26/10 4:53 PM at 10/26/10 To Media Set Startup A... - 10/26/10 4:54:14 PM: Copying Desktop 10/26/10 4:56:30 PM: Snapshot stored, 196 KB 10/26/10 4:56:41 PM: Comparing Desktop 10/26/10 4:57:03 PM: Execution completed successfully Completed: 1 files, 7 KB Performance: 0.1 MB/minute (0.1 copy, 0.1 compare) Duration: 00:02:48 (00:01:06 idle/loading/preparing) stucFinished: [EXABYTE|VXA-3a|3233] incorrect scsiServiceResponse 0x700945f0, scsiStatus 0x70095790 stucFinished: [1|0|0] transaction result 0x700a6bd0 stucFinished: [EXABYTE|VXA-3a|3233] incorrect scsiServiceResponse 0x700945f0, scsiStatus 0x70094610 stucFinished: [1|0|0] transaction result 0x700a6bd0 Should I be concerned? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniels Posted October 28, 2010 Report Share Posted October 28, 2010 I would check the ini file again and make sure it includes the appropriate line. Since this test was only one file I would do a larger test and see what happens. I have feeling that the ini file has reverted and the drive is disappearing during the backup and with one file it may not be long enough to get a proper result. Before editng the ini file make sure to stop the engine or the new ini file will not be read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotmasta Posted October 28, 2010 Author Report Share Posted October 28, 2010 ini file looks proper. Ran an incremental backup script- 2.5 GB It ran fine. Log is clean of all SCSI errors. One peculiar thing I noticed is the backup is reported with the warning yellow triangle under Activities and Reports, but under Past Backups is listed with green succesful icon. There were some compare errors in the log, because I was futzing around during the backup. But I think the VXA mystery is solved. Thanks much! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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