On Apr 11, 2006, at 8:23 AM, David E Ehresman wrote:

How does the 3494 determine which 'media type', e.g. 3590 J or K, a
cart
is? Our 3494 is starting to eject tapes as they are inserted
complaining
about unknown media type. These are tapes that have been in use for a
number of years and are being reinserted into the 3494 after coming
back
from the offsite vault. Most of the time they are being correctly
recognized simply by reinserting them into the library another
time. Our
non-IBM CE doesn't have a clue.

Hi, David -

We've seen the same thing here, with J tapes coming back from offsite:
insert a bunch, have one or two rejected with that media complaint.
Reinsert (one at a time), and the library then accepts the tape.
It may be that the laser/receptor is having trouble reading the 'J'
stickerette, where rubbing one's finger over it before inserting may
remove some residue which is imperceptible to us.

    Richard Sims