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Veritas NetBackup™ Troubleshooting Guide

Last Published: 2019-07-01

Product(s): NetBackup (8.2)

About the conditions that cause media to freeze

The following conditions can cause media to freeze:

The same media has excessive errors during backup. An example of the log entry is as follows:

FREEZING media id E00109, it has had at least 3 errors in the last 
12 hour(s)

The causes and the resolutions for this problem include:

Dirty drives	Clean the drives that are freezing the media according to the manufacturer's suggestions. Frozen media is one of the first symptoms of a dirty drive.
The drive itself	Check for the tape device errors that the operating system logs or the device driver reports. If any are found, follow the hardware manufacturer's recommendations for this type of error.
Communication issues at the SCSI or host bus adapter (HBA) level	Check for SCSI or HBA device errors the operating system logs or the device driver reports. If any are found, follow the hardware manufacturer's recommendations for this type of error.
Drive not supported	Ensure that the tape drives appear on the hardware compatibility list as supported for NetBackup. This list is located on the following Veritas Support website: www.veritas.com/docs/TECH59978
Media not supported	Ensure that the media is supported for use with the tape drive by the tape drive vendor.

An unexpected media is found in the drive. An example of the log entry is as follows:
```
Incorrect media found in drive index 2, expected 30349,     \ 
found 20244, FREEZING 30349
```
The following conditions can cause this error:
- NetBackup requests a media ID to be mounted in a drive. If the media ID that is physically recorded on the tape is different than the NetBackup media ID, the media freezes. This error occurs if the robot needs to be inventoried, or if barcodes have been physically changed on the media.
- Another NetBackup installation previously wrote to the media with different barcode rules.
- The drives in the robot are not configured in order within NetBackup, or they are configured with the wrong tape paths. The correct robot drive number is important to the proper mounting and use of media. The robot drive number is normally based on the relationship of the drive serial number with the drive serial number information from the robotic library. Validate this number before you consider that the device configuration is complete.

The media contain a non-NetBackup format. An example of the log entry is as follows:

FREEZING media id 000438, it contains MTF1-format data and cannot 
be used for backups
FREEZING media id 000414, it contains tar-format data and cannot 
be used for backups
FREEZING media id 000199, it contains ANSI-format data and cannot 
be used for backups

These library tapes may have been written outside of NetBackup. By default, NetBackup only writes to a blank media or other NetBackup media. Other media types (DBR, TAR, CPIO, ANSI, MTF1, and recycled Backup Exec BE-MTF1 media) are frozen as a safety measure. Change this behavior by using the following procedure:

On UNIX

To allow NetBackup to overwrite foreign media, add the following to the bp.conf file that is located at /usr/openv/netbackup/bp.conf for the related media server:

ALLOW_MEDIA_OVERWRITE = DBR 
ALLOW_MEDIA_OVERWRITE = TAR
ALLOW_MEDIA_OVERWRITE = CPIO
ALLOW_MEDIA_OVERWRITE = ANSI
ALLOW_MEDIA_OVERWRITE = MTF1
ALLOW_MEDIA_OVERWRITE = BE-MTF1

Stop and restart the NetBackup daemons for the changes to take effect.

On Windows

On the NetBackup Administration Console, proceed to Host Properties > Media Server

Open the properties for the media server in question.

Select the Media tab.

The Allow Media Overwrite property overrides the NetBackup overwrite protection for specific media types. To disable the overwrite protection, select one or more of the listed media formats. Then stop and restart the NetBackup services for the changes to take effect.

Do not select a foreign media type for overwriting unless you are sure that you want to overwrite this media type.

For more details about each media type, see the NetBackup Device Configuration Guide.

The media is a tape formerly used for the NetBackup catalog backup. For example, the log entry may be the following:
```
FREEZING media id 000067: it contains Veritas NetBackup (tm) 
database backup data and cannot be used for backups. 
```
The media is frozen because it is an old catalog backup tape which NetBackup does not overwrite by default. The bplabel command must label the media to reset the media header.
The media is intentionally frozen. You can use the bpmedia command to manually freeze media for a variety of administrative reasons. If no record exists of a specific job freezing the media, the media may have been frozen manually.
The media is physically write protected. If the media has a write-protect notch that is set for write protection, NetBackup freezes the media.

To unfreeze frozen media, enter the following bpmedia command:

# bpmedia -unfreeze -m mediaID -h media_server

The media_server variable is the one that froze the media. If this item is unknown, run the bpmedialist command and note the "Server Host:" listed in the output. The following example shows that media server denton froze media div008:

# bpmedialist -m div008

Server Host = denton

ID    rl images  allocated      last updated    density  kbytes restores
         vimages expiration      last read      <------- STATUS ------->
------------------------------------------------------------------------

DIV08  1    1    04/22/2014 10:12 04/22/2014 10:12  hcart     35     5
            1    05/06/2014 10:12 04/22/2014 10:25  FROZEN