Backup jobs fail with "unable to connect to the database (2505)."

Problem

A backup job may go active and allocate backup resources but then fail with the error below reported in the Job Details:

Error bpbrm(pid=27145) db_FLISTsend failed: Unable to connect to the database (2505)

In addition, the bptm process may report:

Warning bptm(pid=27162) cannot update image database to add completed fragment, error = Unable to connect to the database
Info bptm(pid=27162) EXITING with status 252 <----------

Error Message

Further review of the bpdbm log shows the database connection failure:

09:34:06.464 [3880] <16> DbmOdbcConnect::initialize_odbc: Odbc connection failed
ErrMsg [Sybase][ODBC Driver][SQL Anywhere]
Connection error: An error occurred during the SharedMemory connection attempt,
ErrCode -1, Sqlstate 08001, ConnStr PROWS=1000;PBUF=8m;CS=utf8;UID=DBM_MAIN;
PWD=******;LINKS=shmem,tcpip{PORT=13785};ENG=NB_master;DBN=NBDB;CON=DBM_3880_1
09:34:06.464 [3880] <16> ImageQueryBase::init: Cannot connect to the database
09:34:06.464 [3880] <2> DbmOdbcConnect::~DbmOdbcConnect: (-1) Exiting
09:34:06.464 [3880] <2> process_request: request complete: exit status 2505 Unable to connect to the database; query type: 82

Cause

This error can be caused by a lack of semaphore tuning within the kernel. This error cannot be resolved by NetBackup.

Solution

In this case, the semmni value was insufficient at 128. By increasing this value to 1024, the ODBC connection was successful and NetBackup was then able to run successfully.

Please review the Related Article linked below for general recommendations and refer to the platform vendor support for additional details.

Applies To

Although this could affect other platforms, this error has been seen in multiple RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) environments - typically when the RHEL system is the NetBackup (NBU) master server. Any supported version of NetBackup could be affected by this environmental issue.