Dear colleagues,

I didn't think this would resolve this way, but...  I just looked at this
tape again, and it IS NOT EMPTY ANYMORE!  I never saw it go into the
scratch pool, and it is still in the same storage pool (ARCHLOG_TAPE).
That storage pool is used for Oracle achived redo logs, and we back those
up every hour or two on every system with an Oracle database in archive
mode.  Here's a clip from my activity log...

  08/31/01   16:16:52 ANR1425W Scratch volume DBR086 is empty but will not
be deleted - volume state is "mountablenotinlib".
  09/01/01   10:32:56 ANR8337I DLT volume DBR086 mounted in drive DRIVE3
(/dev/mt11).
  09/01/01   11:49:57 ANR8325I Dismounting volume DBR086 - 60 minute mount
retention expired.
  09/01/01   11:50:18 ANR8336I Verifying label of DLT volume DBR086 in
drive DRIVE3 (/dev/mt11).
  09/01/01   11:51:46 ANR8468I DLT volume DBR086 dismounted from drive
DRIVE3 (/dev/mt11) in library ATL.
  09/02/01   09:18:27 ANR1228I Removable volume DBR086 is required for
storage pool backup.
  09/02/01   09:18:27 ANR8324I DLT volume DBR086 is expected to be mounted
(R/W).
  09/02/01   09:20:00 ANR8337I DLT volume DBR086 mounted in drive DRIVE0
(/dev/mt8).

Looks like it was used yesterday morning for a storage pool backup.  I'm
wondering now if another admin defined this tape as belonging to that
storage pool... although I would think I should have been able to delete
it.  And there's still the media state discrepancy issue.

Oh well, I guess we'll just move forward, and wath to see if it happens
again!

Thanks to all for your suggestions.

Robin Sharpe
Berlex Laboratories