MSDP Deduplication Engine Service (spoold) fails to start on Windows system

Problem

NetBackup Deduplication Engine (spoold.exe) can fail to start on a Windows media server if certain configuration items are missing from the system registry.
If this occurs, the debug log for the deduplication engine (spoold.log) will fail to be updated.

Error Message

When attempting to start the 'NetBackup Deduplication Engine' (spoold) or 'NetBackup Deduplication Manager' (spad) via the services control panel (services.msc), the following error will be reported:
Error 1: Incorrect function.

If spoold is started in trace mode (via a command shell as 'Administrator'), you may see the errors outlined below:



C:\Program Files\Veritas\pdde>spoold --trace
Error: 22: _dctPathAddA: invalid NULL parameter
Error: 22: _dctPathAddA: invalid NULL parameter
Error: 22: _dctPathAddA: invalid NULL parameter
Warning: 2: __openReaderA: could not open file C:\Program Files\Veritas\pdde\
Error: 2:
BadValue : (none)
File     : C:\Program Files\Veritas\pdde\
Section  : Symantec\PureDisk\ContentRouter
Entry    : ConfigFilePath
Reason   : Empty or missing configuration directive, file not found or access denied.

C:\Program Files\Veritas\pdde

If spoold is started in trace mode with the verbose switch, you may see the errors outlined below:






C:\Program Files\Veritas\pdde>spoold --trace -v
Info: set entire process max log size to 0
Info: set entire process max log size to 0
Trace: _dctPathGetEtcA: Could not read avlue. Defaulting to ''
Error: 22: _dctPathAddA: invalid NULL parameter
Trace: _dctPathGetEtcA: Could not read avlue. Defaulting to ''
Error: 22: _dctPathAddA: invalid NULL parameter
Trace: _dctPathGetEtcA: Could not read avlue. Defaulting to ''
Error: 22: _dctPathAddA: invalid NULL parameter
Warning: 2: __openReaderA: could not open file C:\Program Files\Veritas\pdde\
Trace: WinStatW: cannot find file
Error: 2:
BadValue : (none)
File     : C:\Program Files\Veritas\pdde\
Section  : Symantec\PureDisk\ContentRouter
Entry    : ConfigFilePath
Reason   : Empty or missing configuration directive, file not found or access denied.

C:\Program Files\Veritas\pdde

Cause

If the above errors are present, the most likely cause is missing entries in the registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Symantec\PureDisk\Agent\

Solution

Check the Windows registry (using 'regedt32') and ensure that the following entries exist:



At a minimum, under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Symantec\PureDisk\Agent\  the following keys should exist: