I had a similar problem with a Sony SDX-500C drive.  I found the changer script 
wasn't waiting for the tape to really become ready.  Using 2.4.4, chg-zd-mtx 
and adding this to changer.conf solved the problem:

offlinestatus=1           #### Set to 0 if 'mt status' gives an
#                         #### "offline" when drive is offline.
#                         #### Set to 1 or greater if 'mt status'
#                         #### doesn't give and offline, rather an
#                         #### "ONLINE" when drive is online.

Ron Bauman
Hatteras Networks, Inc.

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Brown [mailto:tom.brown AT goodtechnology DOT com]
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 12:03 PM
To: Jon LaBadie; amanda-users AT amanda DOT org
Subject: Re: strange am-label issue


I still can't seem to get my tapes labelled correctly.

I go through and label them all using amlabel like so....

$ mtx -f /dev/sg2 status
  Storage Changer /dev/sg2:1 Drives, 6 Slots ( 0 Import/Export )
Data Transfer Element 0:Full (Storage Element 1 Loaded)
      Storage Element 1:Empty
      Storage Element 2:Full
      Storage Element 3:Full
      Storage Element 4:Full
      Storage Element 5:Full
      Storage Element 6:Full

so label the tape in slot 1

$ amlabel -f gt-log gt-log01 slot 1
labeling tape in slot 1 (/dev/nst0):
rewinding, reading label gt-log01
rewinding, writing label gt-log01, checking label, done.

then go onto the next tape

$ mtx -f /dev/sg2 next

$ mtx -f /dev/sg2 status
  Storage Changer /dev/sg2:1 Drives, 6 Slots ( 0 Import/Export )
Data Transfer Element 0:Full (Storage Element 2 Loaded)
      Storage Element 1:Full
      Storage Element 2:Empty
      Storage Element 3:Full
      Storage Element 4:Full
      Storage Element 5:Full
      Storage Element 6:Full

and label that one

$ amlabel -f gt-log gt-log02 slot 2
labeling tape in slot 2 (/dev/nst0):
rewinding, reading label gt-log02
rewinding, writing label gt-log02, checking label, done.

and do that through to label no.6

then i use amtape to update the tape database to make double sure amanda
knows about all the tapes even though i can see them in the tapelist.

$ amtape gt-log update
amtape: scanning all 6 slots in tape-changer rack:
slot 6: date X        label gt-log06
slot 5: date X        label gt-log05
slot 2: date X        label gt-log02
slot 2: date X        label gt-log02
slot 2: date X        label gt-log02
slot 2: date X        label gt-log02

There is the issue - for some reason it can't seem to see tapes 01,03,04
even though it labelled them OK and why is it 'seeing' tape02 4 times.

Has anyone got any ideas as this has got me stumped.

thanks

Tom