Troubleshooting Guide

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	*This is documentation for SEP sesam version 5.0.0 Jaglion.*
	This is not the latest version of SEP sesam documentation and, as such, does not provide information on features introduced in the latest release. For more information on SEP sesam releases, see SEP sesam Release Versions. For the latest documentation, check SEP sesam documentation.

Introduction

Additional resources

Visit SEP sesam YouTube Channel for latest videos and webinars.

Check FAQ to find the answers to most common questions.

Problems? See the Troubleshooting Guide.

If you are using an older SEP sesam version, refer to Documentation archive.

This guide is intended to help you quickly identify and resolve problems and errors during setup, installation and during normal operation of your SEP sesam system. SEP sesam often indicates that there has been a change or event that impacts overall system performance. Changes in SEP sesam backup performance are usually caused by system changes or failures.

First steps

To solve problems quickly and efficiently, make yourself familiar with the general troubleshooting information. Attempt to identify and resolve the problem by yourself. If you cannot find a solution to your problem, report it to SEP sesam support. The support team will then provide you with further instructions.

Identifying the problem

It is important to identify a problem as accurately as possible so that the best solution to the problem can be applied. Answer the following questions to identify the problem you are experiencing:

What was the message or error?
When did the error first appear?
Does the error always occur after a specific action?
Does the error always occur at the specific time, e.g., in the morning, in the evening, etc.?
What steps are necessary to duplicate the error?
Did you make any changes to your SEP sesam environment before the error occurred?

Common problems you can solve by yourself

Below is a list of the most common problems you can solve by yourself. Most of the errors you are likely to encounter can be solved by following these instructions.

Check with sm_main status to see if all processes are running. If necessary, start the missing process again with sm_main reload.
View the day log and search for errors.
Check if the failure was caused by a Newday event. You can prevent Newday from aborting running activities, as described at Newday Event.
Check if there is a time frame set in the schedule after which the scheduled event is cancelled (option Stop task if it runs longer...). See Creating a Schedule.
Check specific protocols for backups, restores.

Before contacting support

Before contacting SEP sesam support, make sure that you have exhausted any options that might enable you to solve the problem by yourself. Perform these general checks:

Check whether your problem is described in the Error Messages Guide or Troubleshooting Guide.
Browse through the FAQ and check the forum.
Go through the Common problems you can solve by yourself checklist above.
Collect all relevant data about the problem and send it to SEP sesam support:
- error output
- message ID
- SEP sesam version (Server, RDS and Client)
- operating system environment
- LOGs (when there is a problem with a backup job, choose in the GUI 'JOB STATE'- 'BACKUPS' - Right click on the affected job and select the bottom menu item 'Download archive with all log files' -> Please send the created LOG archive too.) Proceed in the similar way for restore, migration or replication.

How to interpret SEP sesam's backup module's error messages?

SEP sesam backup modules are designed to produce extended error messages which may return information from 5 layers: SBC – XBSA – FTP – SMS – operating system. SEP sesam scans the protocol files for warnings and errors after backup and restore. In the event of a warning or an error, the first identified message is printed in the summary at the end of the protocol.

Every backup module uses the X/Open Backup Services API (XBSA) standard. SEP sesam XBSA is based on FTP implementation. The backup module connects to SEP sesam's FTPD daemon implementation – Sesam Transfer Protocol Daemon (STPD). Sesam Transfer Protocol Daemon (STPD) is a service that requests and delivers the backup data from or to the SMS Server and manages the data flow between the SEP sesam Server and a client. During a restore STPD receives the data from the SMS Server and sends it to the client, which then restores the data to the target system. Sesam Multiplex Stream (SMS) is a service that receives the backup data from STPD and writes the data to the backup media. During a restore, it reads the data from the backup media and sends it to STPD. Additionally, the SEP sesam backup client (SBC) module executes backup, migration and restore tasks. SBC collects and consolidates backup data on the client system and delivers it to STPD. A list of all SBC messages (C header file) can be found at SBC Messages.

An error message is composed of the messages from the triggering layer up to the upper layers. If an operating system returns an error, the error code and the operating system message are added to the SEP sesam error message. Because of this, error messages can also help troubleshoot problems that are not caused by SEP sesam (for example, OS problems).

Typical backup protocol

The following example shows a typical backup protocol. It is composed of 4 sections: about module, operational parameters, processing, and a summary.

2009-06-26 10:28:16: sbc-3036: Info:    # SESAM BACKUP CLIENT FOR Windows NT FILE SYSTEMS, VERSION: 3.2A17 Build
Revision: 1.257 (x64), Released: Jun 25 2009 #
2009-06-26 10:28:16: sbc-3063: Info:    -------------------- Operation Parameters --------------------
2009-06-26 10:28:16: sbc-3019: Info:    OS info:          Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Build: 6001 Service Pack 1 (x64)
2009-06-26 10:28:16: sbc-3100: Info:    Program PID:      42900
2009-06-26 10:28:16: sbc-3030: Info:    Operation:        BACKUP, Level: COPY
2009-06-26 10:28:16: sbc-3031: Info:    Storage Host:     qsbox3:11001,0-0:SESAM_SECURE_AUTHENTICATION:****
2009-06-26 10:28:16: sbc-3032: Info:    Control Host:     qsbox3:11001:SESAM_SECURE_AUTHENTICATION:*
2009-06-26 10:28:16: sbc-3040: Info:    Device:           SMS:disk1:SHARE:64
2009-06-26 10:28:16: sbc-3064: Info:    --------------------- Operation Messages ---------------------
2009-06-26 10:28:16: sbc-3002: Info:    Building file list from: [C:\SEPsesam\var\ini]
2009-06-26 10:28:16: sbc-3022: Info:    Command line ["sbc" "-b" "-C" "qsbox3:11001" "-S" "qsbox3:11001" "-l" "copy" "-s"
"SF20090626102812" "-d" "SMS:disk1" "-t" "weekly00001:1" "-j" "TEST_BACKUP" "-i" "job=TEST_BACKUP,nod=qsbox3,cmd=sbc,src=C/ /SEPsesam
/var/ini,ptf=WNT,typ=Path,exc=" "C:/SEPsesam/var/ini" ]
2009-06-26 10:28:16: sbc-3003: Info:    Opening saveset: SF20090626102812
2009-06-26 10:28:18: sbc-3104: Info:    Saveset info: [SEGMENT=3]
2009-06-26 10:28:18: sbc-3004: Info:    Begin writing to saveset...
2009-06-26 10:28:18: sbc-3074: Info:    Backup start time [20090626102818]
2009-06-26 10:28:18: sbc-3143: Info:    Starting with drive C:
2009-06-26 10:28:18: sbc-3006: Info:    Saveset size: 98304 bytes. Throughput: 189.820 MB/Hour.
2009-06-26 10:28:18: sbc-3005: Info:    Closing saveset.
2009-06-26 10:28:18: sbc-3052: Info:    Items processed correctly: [25]. Not processed or incorrectly processed items: [0].
2009-06-26 10:28:18: sbc-3007: Info:    Operation successful.
2009-06-26 10:28:19: sbc-3001: Info:    Exiting.

Backup error summary

The error message summary is prefixed by a short information string. The full error message is composed as follows:

{status}/{amount}/{saveset ID}/{SBCstart}/{message}

The components of this string have the following meanings:

{status}	{amount}	{saveset ID}	{SBCstart}	{message}
0 - successful 1 - warning 2 - empty LIS 3 - broken during backup C - broken before data transfer X - failed	Amount of data stored on media	Automatically generated saveset ID	Starting time on the client	Message about the error

The following example shows a backup error summary with all 5 layers prefixed by a short information string.

X/0/SF20060629233007/20060629232907/Error: XBSA Call BSAEndData (closing saveset) failed:
System detected error, operation aborted. TRANSIENT or PERMANENT NEGATIVE reply:
553 STOR Failed. 1037: Writing data block on tape failed (23): Data error (cyclic redundancy check).
1039: Writing of Saveset Trailer failed.

The amount of details provided for backup or restore is defined by the log level.

How to set a log level

You can control the reporting (verbose) level to choose the details of messages that SEP sesam reports in various error logs. Running SEP sesam with a higher log level than default (0 for backup and restore) might be useful when you want to get more information about specific events or modules or when asked by support in the course of diagnosing your specific problem.

Note that increasing the log level increases the amount of information being logged and may negatively affect the performance of SEP sesam. Therefore you should only set a higher log level for your own analysis of a specific issue with backup or restore, or when asked by support to provide debugging information in case of troubleshooting. Once you have reproduced the issue, set the log level back to default if you have modified it in the debug.ini file.

You can set the log level in SEP sesam on the following levels:

For specific backup or restore task in the GUI: Main selection -> Tasks -> By Clients -> double-click the backup or restore task to open the Properties. The log level is set under the Options tab for backup and Expert Options for the restore task. For details, see section Setting log level on a per-task basis in GUI.
Globally for SEP sesam kernel modules by modifying <SESAM_VAR>/ini/debug.ini file on SEP sesam Server. For details, see section Setting log level globally for SEP sesam kernel modules in debug.ini.

The default SEP sesam directory for logs is <SESAM_VAR> (/var/opt/sesam/var). For more information, see Directory Layout.

SEP sesam log levels

SEP sesam uses different log levels for different modules. The following list represents the reporting level of the backup and restore protocol, which is set in GUI on a per-task basis. Log levels are listed in order of increasing amount of information logged, from lowest to highest:

Setting	Log level details
0	print only standard and error messages together with summary
1	display a line for every item when its processing starts: sbc-3008: Info: Processing item: [xxx]...
2	display a line for every item when its processing finishes: sbc-3108: Info: Item processed successfully: [xxx]
3	display backup module processing information (with DB_API modules)
4	display underlying module processing XBSA and detailed DB_API modules
5	display packing data (mtf, cpio, sidf) trace messages