Tape initializing problem

[ruben_romo3]

Hello everyone,

We are working on ECC 6, Oracle 10.2 on Solaris 10 and we aquired an SL24 Sun StorageTek unit to make the backups faster but I’m having a problem initializing the tape. Before our backup device was disk.

This is the command I am using:

brbackup -u / -c -p initDEV.sap -i force -l E -v QA0001L5

And I get the following error:

Return Code: 0003 Error during initialization

…

command_line     brbackup -u / -c -p initDEV.sap -i force -l E -v QA0001L5

BR0477I Oracle pfile /oracle/DEV/102_64/dbs/initDEV.ora created from spfile /oracle/DEV/102_64/dbs/spfileDEV.ora

BR0205I Backup volume initialization

BR0058I BRBACKUP action ID: bejrltxe

BR0059I BRBACKUP function ID: tib

BR0102I Following backup device will be used: /dev/rmt/0mn

BR0144I Following backup volume name will be used: QA0001L5

BR0129I Force option set - no label checking during initialization

BR0126I Unattended mode active - no operator confirmation required

BR0207I Volume in device: /dev/rmt/0mn will be initialized with name: QA0001L5

BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2012-10-18 09.34.22

BR0226I Rewinding tape volume in device /dev/rmt/0m ...

BR0202I Copying /oracle/DEV/sapbackup/.tape.hdr0

BR0203I to /dev/rmt/0mn ...

BR0278E Command output of 'LANG=C cd /oracle/DEV/sapbackup && echo .tape.hdr0  

LANG=C cpio -ovB > /dev/rmt/0mn': .tape.hdr0

10 bloques

BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2012-10-18 09.34.25

BR0279E Return code from 'LANG=C cd /oracle/DEV/sapbackup && echo .tape.hdr0   LANG=C cpio -ovB > /dev/rmt/0mn': 0

BR0222E Copying /oracle/DEV/sapbackup/.tape.hdr0 to/from /dev/rmt/0mn failed due to previous errors

BR0219E Initialization of volume QA0001L5 in device /dev/rmt/0mn failed

BR0206I End of backup volume initialization

BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2012-10-18 09.34.25

BR0054I BRBACKUP terminated with errors

  The strange issue here is that we have the same level patches, OS and SAP version, init<sid>.sap and init<sid>.ora files, permissions, etc. in our QAS and DEV system and the command line and backups are working fine on that.

Things I’ve tried:

I checked several parameters like tape_address and tape_address_rew , tape_copy_cmd, disk_copy_cmd, etc.

I used the same init<sid>.sap and init<sid>.ora I have in QAS and DEV

I tried using brtools

Tried several tapes and labels

Label checked

I changed cables and SAS cards

Permissions checked

With the command line brbackup –q everything is ok

I am checking internet posts but anything apply to solve my problem.

Any clues will be appreciated,

Ruben

[volker_borowski2 · Accepted solution]

Ruben Romo wrote:

 BR0278E Command output of 'LANG=C cd /oracle/DEV/sapbackup && echo .tape.hdr0   
LANG=C cpio -ovB > /dev/rmt/0mn': .tape.hdr0
10 bloques
BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2012-10-18 09.34.25
BR0279E Return code from 'LANG=C cd /oracle/DEV/sapbackup && echo .tape.hdr0   LANG=C cpio -ovB > /dev/rmt/0mn': 0
BR0222E Copying /oracle/DEV/sapbackup/.tape.hdr0 to/from /dev/rmt/0mn failed due to previous errors

Hi,

looks strange. Reports error, allthough RC is zero.

Strange seems to me that allthough LANG=C is set, cpio is reporting the "blocks" in french.

Looks like an improper "locale" / NLS setup for the C locale.

Maybe brbackup is parsing for "blocks" and reports failure because it can not identify "bloques".

Did this work with another tape before?

Volker

[ruben_romo3 · Accepted solution]

Hi Volker,

   I see you've noticed some interesting here, let me do some tests and I let you know the results as soon as I get them.

Thanks for your time and response.

Best regards,

Ruben

[volker_borowski2 · Accepted solution]

Well,

meanwhile I noticed, "bloques" it is spanish and not french, sorry for that.

I would crosscheck the entire language environment.

env | grep -i -e NLS -e LC -e LANG

And do a native cpio test.

Volker

[ruben_romo3 · Accepted solution]

Spot on Volker!

It was a language problem, I just changed the language environment from Spanish to English (/etc/default/init) and finally the initialization tape and brbackup processes are working fine.

Now this file looks this way

...

TZ=Mexico/General

CMASK=022

LC_COLLATE=en_US.ISO8859-1

LC_CTYPE=en_US.ISO8859-1

LC_MESSAGES=C

LC_MONETARY=en_US.ISO8859-1

LC_NUMERIC=en_US.ISO8859-1

LC_TIME=en_US.ISO8859-1

...

myhostname # locale

LANG=

LC_CTYPE=en_US.ISO8859-1

LC_NUMERIC=en_US.ISO8859-1

LC_TIME="C"

LC_COLLATE=en_US.ISO8859-1

LC_MONETARY=en_US.ISO8859-1

LC_MESSAGES=C

LC_ALL=

Thanks to Abdul, Rod and of course to you for your help,

Ruben

Greetings from Mexico

[former_member182034]

hi Ruben,

first check the parameters in initSID.sap which point to tape drive and also check the below links which might be helpful

Note 540543 - Composite SAP note: dd errors when calling in BR tools

http://scn.sap.com/thread/1738643

Regards,

[ruben_romo3]

Hi Abdul,

   Thanks for your time and response. I have checked the parameters in initSID.sap and are all fine, in fact I copied the initSID.sap from my qas system which is working ok to my prd system with the same result.

Now I checked the sapnote you gave me and I made some changes  to the parameters dd_flags and dd_in_flags as suggested but it did not work. I also  checked the thread you mentioned and it looks very similar to my problem, however I tried that solution but it did not work. Nevertheless I'm going to start all over and check everything again...

Any other suggestion will be welcome.

Best regards,

Ruben

[Former Member]

Hi Ruben,

I wonder if you have tried doing the initialization of tape manually. If not, try below steps:

Try to manually initialize the tape:

1. type brtools in command prompt

2. select 4 (backup and database copy)

3. select 8 (additional functions)

4. select 6 (initialization of BRBACKUP tape volumes)

5. select 2 ( Initialization type (initialize))

6. change to force

7.press c until it is finished.

*sometimes, manual execution refreshes the parameters set in initializing tapes.

Cheers,

Rod

[ruben_romo3]

Hi Rodel,

   Thanks for your time and quick response...and yes, I already tried the initialization of the tape as you suggested but I got the same results.

Any other idea will be welcome,

Ruben