VSS lockup

[TSMTravis]

All,



I have installed 37 TSM clients all 5.3.4 running on server 5.3.4 all running Open File Support. Of the 37, 3 of them (which run W2K3) are locking up when doing a backup.



When i start the backup, by hand or by sched, it creates the cache on the drive (which has plenty of space) and starts to back up. Things will go well for awhile and then the server will stop responding totally and either needs rebooted, or reboots itself.



Looking through all the logs i am not getting any errors. TSM logs just show file [SENT] then nothing until the server comes back up and makes communication with the tsm server again.



The windows logs show shadow copy going up and down several times, then a problem that it cannot find a message for on the (TsmVssPlugin) then nothing until the server comes back up.



I have installed the lastest "Hotfixes" from MS today and same thing... looks like its going ok, then the server just freezes up.



I am not sure where to go from here, the three servers have nothing in common other than W2K3. I have read a lot where people are getting issues with VSS but the get error messages from TSM... I am getting nothing.



If anyone has seen this error. Please advise!



Thanks

 

[BJG]

Hi Travis,

Did you end up finding a solution for this problem? I came across your thread through a Google search. We have the same thing happening to one of our servers - which is unfortunately the TSM server itself.

Any solution yourself or anyone else might have for this would be much appreciated.

Cheers,
Ben.

 

[w33liam]

Same issues on server 2003

Hi,


We've been facing the same issues on TSM 5.3.4 on 2003 Servers. Please do let us know if the solution has been found. Cheers.

 

[ebaracco]

I'm having this same error with a clustered node as well. Has anyone gotten an answer or fix? IBM and google search doesn't come up with anything.

 

[sgabriel62]

Everyone;
It boils down to the correct patching of the Windows Server.
Have your SAs - verify. Here is a clue - Run NTBackup against the server's System State - if it fails with ANY ERROR - its a windows problem. If it passes then its a TSM Client issue.
In a clustered enviornment, its deals with the clusterdb area

Good luck everyone

 

[TSMTravis]

Hi All,

The solution I came up with at this client was to not do OFS backups. We had to completely remove the client and reinstall it WITHOUT the Open File Support to get it to not freeze up anymore.

I am doing 5.5 installs now and haven't seen any problems with it. Doesn't mean that this error won't rear its ugly head again.

It was a MS patch issue from what I understand, possibly they have fixed it. But like i am a consultant and move from one thing to another and have been doing mostly Netbackup Installs the last year. But i have heard of this a few months back from colleagues. I told them to do the same, remove the System State and there are no more problems.

 

[chad_small]

What happens if you use the VSS for the OFS in TSM 5.5? You don't have to use the LVSA, it might work better without it. Or was is locking up when using the VSS as the snapshot provider?

 

[TSMTravis]

Haven't seen the issue in 5.5 yet. But it was most assuredly VSS that was causing the problem in 5.3. Strange thing is, I don't see this error in Netbackup installs on 2k3. So it seems there is something with the 5.3 TSM and 2k3 that dislike each other.

The customer I am at has a lot of 2k3. So i am sure if it is going to rear its ugly head on 5.5 it will happen soon.

T

 

[cerhard16]

TSMTravis--are you running OFS with the 5.5 client?

We're having the same problem, but the problem isn't consistent. We had the problem, then it dissappeared for about 8 months. It then cropped up again within the last month(running client 5.4). I suspected VSS, but really didn't have much to base it on. We too were going to switch to 5.5 to see if the problem would clear....

Please let us know how it turns out for you....

 

[TSMTravis]

Unfortunately I am doing the install at a customer site (i am a consultant) so I probably won't see what will happen in the long run. This customer is running OFS on just a couple of servers. Not across the board like other customers.

I am here another week. So I will let everyone know what happens. I have been doing more netbackup installs the last year or so. So i havent seen this error since the original post. But I was just looking on here for another issue i was having and saw that I was not the only one that was having/had had this issue.

I will keep everyone up to date with any information. If there is someone out there that has this problem consistently on a 5.3 client and can upgrade to 5.5 and let us know what happens that would be great.

 

[TSMTravis]

Just found this on IBM Partnerworld. Hopefully this will help everyone. It appears that it was fixed is 5.5 GA.


TSM client APARs fixed in the Version 5.5 general availability release (5.5.0.0), and in 5.5.0.x interim fixes (5.5.0-TIV-TSMBAC-IF00xx)

Answer

* V5.5 GA release (5.5.0.0) APARs that were fixed since the V5.4.1 fix pack was released:

IC49029 All Windows WINDOWS SYSTEM HANG DURING OFS BACKUP

 

[cerhard16]

Hey...thanks a lot for you input. I'll go check that out.

We were running it accross the board, but it only seemed to affect our W2K3 file servers--the ones we really needed OFS. I had no problems running backups by hand, but as posted, running backups using through the scheduler service kept hanging the system.

We uninstalled OFS on one file server (which fixed it) and have backup "jobs" running through "scheduled tasks" on the other (to capture .pst data).

I'm planning on going to the 5.5 client perhaps Thursday night--I'll let you know if 5.5 truly fixes it. Thanks again for your help!

--Chad

 

[cerhard16]

Just a follow up on my last post on this topic (a couple months ago).

The TSM client 5.5 using the LVSA for open file support corrected our W2K3 system lockups. We haven't had a single problem (with that, anyway) since getting off of 5.3/5.4 and going to 5.5.

VSS doesn't work, but I don't even care--just as long as backups are completing. Thanks again TSMTravis.

Onto bigger problems now...

 

[kinscoe1]

Does 5.5 require a reboot when you upgrade from 5.4?

 

[cerhard16]

I think it depends. I had to reboot because I had options for OFS installed. I had 2 reboots--one for the uninstall of 5.4, and another after installing 5.5.

Had I not been using OFS (LVSA), I don't think a reboot would've been required. I could be wrong though...

--Chad

 

[kinscoe1]

Thanks Chad. I have been having VSS errors using the 5.4 client, along with skipped files, and I saw where the 5.5 client eliminated that problem... supposedly. But, the test install I did was on an XP machine (our servers are 2003 SP1) and the XP machine required a reboot. I would like to upgrade all the servers but there is no way I am going to be able to reboot all 160 of them.