I believe this is what the problem for my drive idling was.

My server has 2 tape drives in it. Both the same type so NetBackup uses these 
two drives together in a pool. For full backups, this is perfect as both 
drives are required.

For incremental backups, only one drive is required. I have tried putting 
only one tape in one drive and leaving the other empty. This seems to have 
been the cause of the idling backups, NetBackup wanted to start a stream to 
the empty drive, even though there was plenty of room on the tape in the 
other drive.

Today, NetBackup decided it wanted to use media other than what we had 
mounted (we use bplabel to custom label our volumes for easier 
identification).

Yesterday, we labeled the tape W3D3-A. It was the tape in the drive.

Netbackup decided it wanted to use W3D2-A and W3D1-A (Monday and Tuesday 
incrementals).

According to the manual, the Standalone Drive Extensions of NetBackup are 
supposed to use whatever media is in the drive. Page 615 of the NetBackup for 
Unix System administrators guide (V3.2), How NetBackup Uses Media in 
Standalone Drives, Media Selection Using Standalone Drive Extensions, point 
2, major bullet 2 clearly outlines the case I am attempting to take advantage 
of, using bplabel to label a tape before the backup begins. I am confused 
then by the behaviour NetBackup is exhibiting, as it appears to be contrary 
to the documentation.

Now that I beleive I have determined what is happening, I am not sure how to 
find a resolution to this issue. Any suggestions?

Thank you very much.

Jason
-- 
Jason Ahrens
PSINet Ltd.
"The Internet SuperCarrier"
http://www.psi.ca