[Networker] Problem reading tape labels?

Hi,

We have a sporadic problem on our SDLT-600 drives (Quantum M1800 tapelibrary) wherein NW will complain that it cannot read the label on thetape (SDLT-2 media) when it goes to unload the volume, and sometimeswhen it loads it. I have 'Verify label on unload' set to 'yes'.

It will then issue something like this if the error occurs following abackup when it goes to unmount:


03/10/09 10:17:09 nsrd: media info: About to start checking label
03/10/09 10:17:09 nsrd: media info: Not a valid networker label
03/10/09 10:17:09 nsrd: media info: expected volume 'vol1' got '-'.

03/10/09 10:17:10 nsrd: media info: Label check failed, marking savesetssuspect and volume vol1 full.


or maybe:
03/09/09 23:32:50 nsrd: media info: expected volume 'vol1' got 'NULL'.

03/09/09 23:32:50 nsrd: media info: Label check failed, marking savesetssuspect and volume vol1 full.

The odd thing, though, is that I never see this problem when I labeltapes, and I can generally write to the tape fine for a while before Isee this. The error seems random, however, and it might take a while toshow up, so there could be a number of loads/unloads before it occurs.It might only occur on certain tapes, too, and never on others.

This has happened on a number of tapes, though. We'll be fine for awhile, and then suddenly one day it hits us. NW will then mark all thesave sets 'suspect' and the tape 'full'. Nasty! Anyway, I might testinventorying a group of tapes, including the culprit tape, and it willsucceed for the first several and then maybe fail with the 'NULL labelfound' error, or it might fail on a tape that I had not previously seenthe problem on. On the other hand, it might succeed in inventorying allthe volumes, but then fail on a subsequent re-test. It seems to affectall the drives, but a 'scanner' command will read the label correctly.Hmm ...

There's no indication on the GUI panel that the drives need to becleaned, and I don't want to over clean them. I called Quantum todiscuss the problem with them some time ago, and they recommendedupgrading the firmware.

My question, and it might seem silly, is would upgrading the firmwarereally resolve an issue like this? Would a newer version of the firmwaresomehow try harder to read a label? Has anyone seen firmware issuesthat caused this mischief?


Thanks for any input.

George


--
George Sinclair
Voice: (301) 713-3284 x210

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