Backup Exec Fails 15 Seconds into Job

Make sure the thumb drives are formated NTFS.  I have seen some formated with FAT/FAT32.  

I would try to also do a ntbackup backup to the thumb drives to check them out.

The thumb drive is formatted with FAT/FAT32 however I am not given the option to format the drive in NTFS. The only thing I have in the drop down is to format with FAT.

I have used ntbackup and it does work for up to 4GB.

You can try to convert the the flash drives to ntfs ussing command line  convert driver letter /FS:NTFS

Otherwise I would try to make sure that the backup job is set for 4GB chunks since this is max file size for FAT32 file.

I was able to convert the flash drive NTFS and now I am able to get a file the displayed the entire 14GB in Backup Exec. This still doesn't resolve the problem though. I consistently get to 19 seconds in and down the bengine goes.

Do you get an errors in BE or Event Viewer?

Event Viewer displays the following for the engine crash.

Event Type:      Error
Event Source:      Application Error
Event Category:      (100)
Event ID:      1000
Date:            6/28/2009
Time:            9:51:04 PM
User:            N/A
Computer:      *****SQL
Description:
Faulting application bengine.exe, version 10.0.5484.38, faulting module bengine.exe, version 10.0.5484.38, fault address 0x000a7c5f.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74   Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 46 61 69 6c   ion Fail
0010: 75 72 65 20 20 62 65 6e   ure  ben
0018: 67 69 6e 65 2e 65 78 65   gine.exe
0020: 20 31 30 2e 30 2e 35 34    10.0.54
0028: 38 34 2e 33 38 20 69 6e   84.38 in
0030: 20 62 65 6e 67 69 6e 65    bengine
0038: 2e 65 78 65 20 31 30 2e   .exe 10.
0040: 30 2e 35 34 38 34 2e 33   0.5484.3
0048: 38 20 61 74 20 6f 66 66   8 at off
0050: 73 65 74 20 30 30 30 61   set 000a
0058: 37 63 35 66               7c5f    

Looks like generic output doesn't give us much to work with.  Any errors in Backup Exec?

I don't get an real backup exec errors because the engine crashes and the job hangs. When I restart the services the job has to be canceled in order to clear if from the job monitor active list. Therefore the only log entry is that I have canceled the job.

However, I do get somewhat of an error when the job engine crashes. Under Job Status of the job monitor it states "Communication Stalled"

I wonder if it's a coding error in Backup Exec -- that it's not expecting writes to be as quick as the memory card is able to respond, and is thus missing status messages, and hanging while waiting for the message that has already been sent, long ago.

I'd really suggest you upgrade to BE12, which has to be several years newer than 10... it may be worth taking this up with Symantec support.

Does it work direct to tape or does it give you the same error?

works direct to tape.

Also the Windows Backup now completes successfully with 13Gb of data instead of just 4Gb.

It looks like backup exec needs to be upgraded, it may be an issue with v10.

I've seen situation like this with Flash drives. Many of them don't compare the normal Hard Drive access times. Due to this problem, they work very well for copying files in Windows, but applications such as BE expect the drive to have quicker and consistant access attributes that most flash drives don't have. I suggest getting an External USB HD. You can pick up a 1 Terabyte external USB drive for about $100. I have four from western Digital that we swap in and out to grandfather our backups.

Let me know if this helps.

Thanks,

TG

According to Symantec version 10.0 should be able to backup to a flash drive using the b2d function. This is the same that I am currently using. I unfortunately can't get it to work.