Category Archives: Advisory

After a new installation of Data Protector and when the GUI is opened you might receive a “Internal Error” message. In this case the GUI cannot be used. It seems Windows 8.1 systems are involved. For more details and the solution please visit http://www.syncer.de/?p=680. Thanks to Sebastian.

Since MS Windows 2012 is supported with Data Protector, the disk agent is able to backup and restore files from deduplicated volumes. However, when the deduplicated volume is mounted into NTFS folder, the disk agent cannot recognize the deduplicated volume and hence, cannot backup the Chunk Store. No error messages is displayed during backup. The error appears when you try to open recoverd files. An error message from Windows about corrupted files is displayed and in no way it will be possible to repair these corrupted files. The error has not been seen when the volume is mounted as a drive letter. All versions of Data Protector supporting Windows 2012 and Windows 2012 R2 are affected. A hotfix should already exist and can be requested when a support case is opened.

When using the Data Protector VE integration to backup virtual machines and after the installation of patch bundle 8.11 it might happen, that the backup of the virtual machines is not working. The problem occurs on German localized vCenter Servers only, as the root path for the datacenter is reported as “Datencenter”. The solution is to install a hotfix. Log a support case and ask for QCCR2A52103 if you have the same session messages as shown below. A workaround is to open the “Managed Object Browser” on your vCenter server (https://localhost/mob), select “content” and change the group-d1 property from “rootFolder ManagedObjectReference:Folder group-d1 (Datencenter)” to “rootFolder ManagedObjectReference:Folder group-d1 (Datacenters)“.

[Normal] From: BSM@server.doamin "VEPA_TEST"  Time: 03.04.2014 17:05:29
	Backup session 2014/04/03-40 started.

[Normal] From: BSM@server.doamin "VEPA_TEST"  Time: 03.04.2014 17:05:29
	OB2BAR application on "server.doamin" successfully started.

[Normal] From: VEPALIB_VMWARE@server.doamin "/Datacenter"  Time: 03.04.2014 17:05:30
	Resolving objects for backup on vCenter 'server1.doamin' ... 

[Major] From: VEPALIB_VMWARE@server.doamin "/Datacenter"  Time: 03.04.2014 17:05:37
	Backup failed.

[Normal] From: BSM@server.doamin "VEPA_TEST"  Time: 03.04.2014 17:06:14
	OB2BAR application on "server.doamin" disconnected.

After updating to vCenter 5.1 update 2 and with Data Protector 7.03 or 8.1X a blank page might be displayed when using VMware GRE. The reason might be a change in Tomcat of vCenter. When looking into the log files (i.e. C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\Logs\localhost.YYYY-MM-DD.log) the error VMwareGRE: runCGI (stderr):Can't open perl script "C:\Program": No such file or directory might be displayed. As a workaround the config file web.xml of the VMware GRE plugin can be modified. When using a standard installation the file is located in C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\tomcat\webapps\VMwareGRE\WEB-INF\. The workaround will change how the parameters are handled.

Change the block:

<init -param>
<param -name/>executable
<param -value/>”C:\Program Files\OmniBack\bin\perl.exe” -I “C:\Program Files\OmniBack\lib\perl”
</init>

Changed block:

<init -param>
<param -name/>executable
<param -value/>C:\Program Files\OmniBack\bin\perl.exe
</init>
<init -param>
<param -name/>executable-arg-1
<param -value/>-I
</init>
<init -param>
<param -name/>executable-arg-2
<param -value/>C:\Program Files\OmniBack\lib\perl
</init>

When using Data Protector 7.03 and when doing Enhanced Automated Disaster Recovery for a Windows 2003 32bit client, the restore might not work after the Mini OS has been started. You might recognize the starting omnidr process, however the preocess will run into a loop and the EADR process will not continue.

Workaround:

• Open task manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del)
• File –> new task –> execute cmd.exe
• Open the Registry editor using regedit.exe.
• Export a part of registiry – HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Hewlett-Packard\ to file C:\DRM$SYS\system32\OB2DR\tmp\hp.reg.
• In HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Hewlett-Packard\OmnibackII\Features\ there is a key with a “Nul” value at the end, this value will not be recognized and is not exported. This “Nul” value is the root cause of the problem.
• Delete the “Nul” value from registry, using the tool RegDelNul from Sysinternals. Execute the command regdelnull.exe -s HKLM\SOFTWARE\Hewlett-Packard.
• Import the saved registry hive using the command regedit.exe /s C:\DRM$SYS\system32\OB2DR\tmp\hp.reg.
• Restart the restore process using the command C:\DRM$SYS\System32\OB2DR\bin\omnidr.exe -drmini C:\$DRM$\drecovery.ini.

Thanks to Tobias for this important information.