How to troubleshoot NetBackup when scheduled jobs are not running, but manually-initiated jobs run successfully

Description

How to troubleshoot NetBackup when scheduled jobs are not running, but manually-initiated jobs run successfully.

Modification Type: Supplement.

Modification:

There are several legitimate reasons why NetBackup jobs do not start when scheduled. The following possible causes should be reviewed (in the order listed) and eliminated prior to contacting Veritas Enterprise Technical Support.

1. Confirm the policy update interval has passed. The policy update interval is the frequency which policy changes are processed by the nbpem process. This is a configurable value, and is set to ten minutes by default. To change the policy update value, open the NetBackup Administration Console, and from under "Host Properties", select the master server. Then open the master server, and select the "Global Attributes" section. On that window, adjust the time as desired (see Figure1).

Note: On an already overworked server, decreasing this value could cause further system slow downs. An alternative to changing the policy update interval would be to run the nbpemreq command.

To use this command, open a command prompt, and navigate to the directory below, and run the following command:

nbpemreq -updatepolicies

On UNIX systems, the directory path to this command is /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd/
On Windows systems, the directory path to this command is install_path\NetBackup\bin\admincmd\

Figure1

2. Confirm the scheduled backup attempts has not been exceeded for these jobs. This value specifies the number of times NetBackup attempts to complete a backup in a specified time period. The default values are two attempts in 12 hours. This value can also be configured from the "Global Attributes" section of the properties of the master server (see Figure2).

Note: On an already overworked server, increasing the number of failures or decreasing the timeframe could cause further system slowdowns.

Figure2

3. When the configured policy update interval has expired and scheduled jobs are still not initiated, manually submit a single job. It is possible this may clear whatever condition is preventing scheduled jobs from running.

4. Confirm that your schedule calendar date or frequency day match the start window. e.g. If you have your schedule set to every second Wednesday of the month but have the start window set to run on Thursdays, your job will not kick off.

5. If scheduled jobs are still not running, stop and restart the nbpem process.

If none of these steps resolve the issue, contact Veritas Enterprise Technical Support and reference this KB article.