Missing Writers

[dbias1601]

Hello All,

I have a number of clients that regularly fail on system state due to missing writers. The missing writers are always either 'system writer', 'WMI Writer' or both. The output of VSSADMIN LIST WRITERS confirms they are missing. Until now the fix I have been using has either been to reboot the box or restart the associated services. Both of these approaches work but I would like to identify a root cause - what can cause writers to disappear (rather than just fail etc)? Anyone have any ideas or experience with this?

TSM client: 6.2.5.0
OS: Windows 2003 SP2

Any help much appreciated

Thanks,
DBIAS

 

[domino]

This is not a TSM issue - maybe ntbackup will fail also - ask your windows admin for support ;-)

 

[dbias1601]

Hi Domino,

Thanks for the reply. I am aware that this is not a TSM issue but I wont be getting any assistance from the Windows admins. I have have done extensive troubleshooting with various failed or timed out writers and had a bit of luck resolving those problems and identifying root cause. When the writers are missing however I don't know where to begin - as stated above I can resolve the issue fairly easily but its not practical to do this every week. Really hoping someone has some idea (or even just a starting point) what causes writers to disappear.

Thanks,
DBIAS

 

[tsm_dude]

TSM is a piece of crap at backing up system state. I usually exclude system state and do via ntbackup.
NTbackup works fine, even if TSM fails.
If TSM fails and NTbackup fail - reboot