Another observation I noticed while examining the backups from 3-4 days 
ago.

It appears that the first tape does contain data.  The only spot that 
doesn't have data is file 1.  The tape header is there, file n >= 2 appear 
to all contain backups.  This would explain why the subsequent tapes may 
end up empty, because (according to amtoc) it attempts to write that huge 
file to the 2nd tape to the file 1 marker position which it can't seem to 
do (it as in amanda? the vxa-1 system? I dunno which...).

If I attempt to access file markers greater than 1, I don't have any 
problems and there are no syslog messages.  But if i attempt to access 
file 1, it keels over and I get messages in syslog.  I guess this is why 
amrestore is crapping out.  This is good in the sense that the backups are 
occurring.  But the amanda is setup to dump the smallest filesystems first 
and then the largest.  which means the level 0 dumps for 2-3 file systems 
aren't happening.

Would 2.4.4p1 actually help?

I am going to try tarring to a blank tape manually and see what happens.

robin