From: etsiao@joule (Eddie Tsiao)
Subject: Re: ATTENTION: A problem with dump under 4.1.1
Keywords: tape, cleaning
Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 21:56:46 GMT

In article <15732.9207240920@thor.cf.ac.uk> spxpmf@thor.cf.ac.uk (Phillip Fayers) writes:
>In article <1992Jul23.132034.6025@csc.canterbury.ac.nz> agw@math.canterbury.ac.nz (Allen Witt) writes:
>|
>| billq@fnal.gov (William R. Quayle) write
>|>In article <1992Jul21.195006.112389@zeus.calpoly.edu>, etsiao@joule (Eddie Tsiao) writes:
>|>|> In article <1992Jul20.073110.20195@aristo.tau.ac.il> shani@GENIUS.TAU.AC.IL (Oren Shani) writes:
>|>|> We have had (are having?) similar problems.  We occationally get an error:
>|>|> 
----   Error deleted...
>|>|> 
>|>Sorry if I've missed this in an earlier followup, but has the drive been
>|>cleaned?  I realize that 8mm cleaning is a sensitive issue (you don't want
>|>to overdo it or *ever* use video cleaners!), but I encountered these same
>|>errors on our servers.  After a cleaning with an Excabyte 8mm cleaning
>|>cartridge, the problems subsided.
>|

Is this attribution list getting confusing or what?  :-)
I have thought about the cleaning and I do it just about every month (since
we do daily backups) but the problem continues.  I've just had two failures
in a row.

>stuff deleted
>|
>I've been having very simlar problems, last nights dump failed with-
>  DUMP: dumping (Pass IV) [regular files]
>  DUMP: Tape write error 10 feet into tape 1
>  DUMP: fopen on /dev/tty fails
>  DUMP: The ENTIRE dump is aborted.
>
>I've had this happen before (oddly enough its usually 10 feet into the
>tape) so I usually redo the dump by hand when I arrive in the morning
>and it works! I've tried cleaning the drive but it doesn't seem to do
>anything.

The same thing happens to me.  When I run it in a shell (not cron), it 
works fine.

>I'm about to rewrite the dump scripts so that they reposition the tape
>and have another go if they fail.

I did this about a month ago.  It worked great once.  Just a warning: 
occationally, I notice that the   DUMP: fopen on /dev/tty fails  error
does not clear itself and everytime the dumpscript tries again, it just
keeps putting out errors to console.  I came in one morning to find the 
server pumping out errors which filled up the root partition (huge messages
file).  If you want a copy of the revised dumpscript, send me some email.
Maybe you can help me iron out some of the problems.

>I also see occasional errors logged to the console:
>
>Jul 24 03:05:42 orion vmunix: st1:  I/O request timeout
>Jul 24 03:05:42 orion vmunix: sm0:  target 5 reverting to async operation
>Jul 24 03:05:42 orion vmunix: sm0:  resetting scsi bus
>.......
>
>although this last one is the first to actually coincide with a tape
>error.
>I'll probably contact our tape drive supplier to see if he has any
>clues.
>
>-- 
>
>Phillip Fayers                      email: fayers@cardiff.ac.uk
>Sun admin/support/programming       phone: 0222 874000 x 5282 (UK)

It seems like we have exactly the same problem.  Maybe we should start
an email forum so we don't clutter up the net too much.  If anyone is
interested, please drop me some email.

			- E.T.

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|Eddie Tsiao                               | etsiao@onramp.ARDFA.CalPoly.EDU |
|System Administrator                      | Voice:   (805) 756-1706         |
|ARDFA Cal Poly,  San Luis Obispo          | FAX:     (805) 756-1702         |
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