TSM fails on passive exchange DB - database does not exist

[Dinet]

Hello,

After a long time working properly TSM started to fail on VSS for passive DB's.
Shortly after that it now says that database doesn't exist, created new database even to try this.
I can backup active copy without any issues.

On the exchange side I've already restarted all and everything and ran the microsoft DLL fix, unless it's active it will fail on vss or say database does not exist...

 

[RecoveryOne]

Could you provide a bit more info please: What Exchange version and TDP for Exchange version are you using?
What error are you receiving? Anything standout in the log files?

Does Exchange (and please excuse me here, not well versed with Exchange) report everything is healthy as far as passive copies?
For what it's worth currently working on an Exchange 2013 upgrade with a four node DAG and we'll be using one of the passive nodes for backup. So far in my (limited) testing, things have been running smoothly. Did have a minor hiccup with vss writers in an error state, but a reboot of the node fixed that. This is with Data Protection 8.1 for Mail.

Sorry, not much help.

 

[Dinet]

Hi, sorry for that, completely forgot to actually provide info... very frustrated with it right now.

Exchange 2010, SP3, Ru16
Server 2008R2
3 Node DAG - currently testing on DB that sits only on two ndoes.
TSM is 7.1.8
The flashcopy on exchange is 4.1.6.0
TDP is 7.1.6

Exchange is healthy with passive copy, can also move it freely between nodes.
Same here for a long time, no hickups in exchange backups, suddenly stopped working... started with one server doing its backup job extremely slow, instead of half hour to hour incremental backup it started to do 8 to 12 hours, turned out it stopped doing incremental backups completely. It started to ignore "incremental" and just did full backups without actually changing backup date on DB's.
Then 2nd server went into complete error mode with VSS failing. No restart or 'microsoft vss dll fix' helped to fix that.

After that we configured 3rd server to do backups, but after full backup TSM didn't change backup status attribute on DB's, including on fresh DB. The server is also fresh-ish install, about month "old".
Then we created another new DB and it simply doesn't start passive backup saying DB doesn't exist. Restarted services, servers and dismounted DB. Removed passive copy, dismounted DB, deleted passive disks, reseeded DB back. It does backup active copy and does change backup date with exchange truncating logs after that without any issues.

All servers are identical in hw and sw.

 

[RecoveryOne]

I understand the frustration, Dinet. Sadly, I can't with my limited knowledge, even attempt a suggestion. At this point, it may be best to get a PMR open.

With our exchange 2007 install, and our new roll-out of 2013, I've never see TSM not flip the bit to signal that a full backup was taken. I have seen it where Exchange will sit on it for a while until it finished doing whatever it was working on, sometimes many many hours after the full.

Best of luck!