NetBackup duplications to tape storage using NDMP direct copy fail with a status 85.

Problem

Duplicating a large NDMP backup failed with a status 85.
The failure occurs with NDMP direct copy enabled (also known as path to tape) for duplications that duplicate from disk to tape.

Error Message

Some excerpts from the   bptm log for the read side of the duplication job reported:
12:42:04.648 [3653] <2> NdmpMoverSession[0]: file transfer complete, status = 0 (NDMP_NO_ERR), bytes transferred = 967573504
12:42:04.669 [3653] <2> NdmpMoverSession[0]: DirectCopy - returning EOF
12:42:04.693 [3653] <2> NdmpMoverSession[0]: file halted reason NDMP_FILE_HALT_ABORTED, bytes transferred = 0
12:42:06.266 [3653] <2> read_data_tir: beginning duplicate of TIR information, expected size is 1024545579 + 1 GB
12:42:24.652 [3653] <2> NdmpMoverSession[0]: file transfer complete, status = 568328203 (NDMP_FILE_END_OF_FILE_ERR), bytes transferred = 2048131072
12:42:24.652 [3653] <16> NdmpMoverSession[0]: ERROR ndmp_file_notify_transfer_complete status = 568328203 (NDMP_FILE_END_OF_FILE_ERR)
12:42:24.663 [3653] <16> NdmpMoverSession[0]: ERROR DirectCopy - Previous internal error occurred
12:42:24.687 [3653] <2> NdmpMoverSession[0]: file halted reason NDMP_FILE_HALT_ABORTED, bytes transferred = 0
12:42:24.741 [3653] <2> set_job_details: Tfile (720801): LOG 1480527744 16 bptm 3653 ERR - Error occurred reading NDMP index file information, error code 20 (NDMP_UNDEFINED_ERR).
12:42:24.741 [3653] <16> read_data_tir: ERR - Error occurred reading NDMP index file information, error code 20 (NDMP_UNDEFINED_ERR).
12:42:25.117 [3653] <2> bptm: EXITING with status 85 <----------
 

Cause

The duplications failed at the very end when duplicating the TIR fragment.  A very small fragment size (2 GB) had been defined for the disk storage which led to 2 TIR fragments being created.  The TIR fragments appear in the bpimagelist output as negative values.

For example from the bpimagelist -backupid <id> -L output two fragments would exist:
Copy number:       1
 Fragment:         TIR (-2)
 Kilobytes:        28088
Copy number:       1
 Fragment:         TIR (-1)
 Kilobytes:        2000128

NetBackup is not able to duplicate a second TIR fragment when direct copy is used.

Solution

To resolve the issue for new backup images increase the fragment size on the disk storage unit to a value large enough to avoid generating a second TIR image fragment.

To workaround the problem for duplicating the affected images choose one of the following which will disable direct copy:
1.  Duplicate to a non-NDMP storage unit.
2.  NDMP direct copy could be disabled.  

Etrack : 3907065