I've seen this before if ADSM is logging in to NetWare with a user ID and
password that has insufficient access rights. The ID must have full supervisory
rights. Also check the SYS:\ADSM directory for multiple .PWD files. There might
be two of these if you back up the machine and the NDS. But if you find
multiple .PWD files, then one of them may be for a different ID that was used
at some time. If that ID can still log in, then ADSM is probably logging in
with that ID (which can log in, but doesn't have sufficient rights).

Try quitting out of DSMC, renaming the .PWD files to .PWX (rather than deleting
them, just in case...), then reloading DSMC. Next, do a SELECTIVE backup
operation on some small file (like SYS:\ADSM\DSM.OPT) just to cause the prompt
for the NetWare ID and password. Enter the ID you've created (that has full
supervisory rights to the machine) and the password. This will generate a new
.PWD file. If that works, then try the operation that was failing before with
the "cannot allocate a directory handle" error. Does that work? If so, go ahead
and delete the .PWX files.

If you back up the NDS, you should also do a SELECTIVE DIRECTORY command to get
prompted for the NetWare ID and password for the NDS tree. You don't need to
back up the complete NDS if doing so during the day is not an option; just
cancel the ADSM session. The point here is to generate a new .PWD file so that
your nightly backups won't sit on the prompt for a user ID all night.

Hope this helps,

Andy Raibeck
ADSM Level 2 Support

        ADSM-L @ VM.MARIST.EDU
        10-05-97 07:35 AM
Please respond to ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU @ internet

To: ADSM-L @ VM.MARIST.EDU @ internet
cc:
Subject: Can't Allocate Handle

Has anyone seen this error before?

10/04/1997 21:49:50  (TSA400 4.14 259) This program cannot allocate a
directory handle.
10/04/1997 21:49:50  ANS4033E System ran out of memory. Process ended.

My Novell servers have all started to give me this error and some won't
start a backup and some stop
 after completing a volume and then won't continue. Nothinbg has been
changed that I am aware of.
All Novell servers are up to 4.11 and the latest patches