>My AIX TSM server (5.2.2.3) just spewed the following error messages.
>
>Talk about schizophrenic/indecisive !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
>What gives ?  All I was doing is a DB backup. Just inserted and
>initialized this tape. The init went fine.
>
>This is an IBM 3583-L72 with 2-LTO2 drives.
>
>*********************************************
>
>04/19/04 15:34:18     ANR8950W Device /dev/rmt3, volume 090000 has issued
>the following Warning TapeAlert: The operation has stopped be cause an
>error has occurred while reading or writing data which the drive cannot
>correct. (SESSION: 5496, PROCESS: 17)
...

You will find TapeAlert summarized in the IBM 358x Setup and Operator Guide
manuals, with flag values.

TapeAlert is a patented technology and standard of the American National
Standards Institute (ANSI) that defines conditions and problems that are
experienced by tape drives. The technology enables a server to read TapeAlert
flags from a tape drive through the SCSI interface.
The LTO Ultrium tape drives incorporate such alerts.
TSM is merely responding to the spew coming from the tape drive.

Looks like we've gone from the obscurant extreme of sense bytes to a
profusion of textual possibilities regarding tape errors.  Perhaps some
day we'll get succinct messages saying "Here's what's wrong...".
Better yet, perhaps IBM's Autonomic Computing initiative
(www.ibm.com/autonomic) will some day come to its tape technology and
fix problems itself.

   Richard Sims   http://people.bu.edu/rbs