Question : Problem: Backup exec not backing up any files - job status is sucessful in spite of this?

My Backup Exec 12 server developed an issue a few days ago whereby a job configured to back up our fileserver would run as scheduled, and finish after a few minutes with on a fraction of the expected byte count. As part of troubleshooting this I initially recreated the job, when that failed I re-installed Backup Exec and pushed the agents again. It correctly backs up my Exchange and SQL databases but not the files on my fileserver.

To make testing this faster I selected much smaller set of data to back up, as the normal backup is over 600gb and takes many hours. At the moment, I am trying to back up a folder called "Completed user request forms", which has 91 files and 7 subfolders.

The selection appears as "E:\Data\General\IT-Info Tech\Completed user request forms\*.* /SUBDIR" when I create the job. I am not using advanced open file, nor am I doing single instance backup (all the files are different anyway). The entire folder with contents is 5.14mb. Once the job has finished, the following is reported in the Job Log;

"Backup Set Detail Information
Directory \
Directory \Data
Directory \Data\General
Directory \Data\General\IT-Info Tech\Completed user request forms

Backup completed on 01/07/2008 at 22:13:19.

Backup Set Summary
Backed up 0 files in 4 directories.
Processed 5,136 bytes in  1 second.
Throughput rate: 0.294 MB/min
Compression Type: None

This backup set may not contain any data."

The fact that the job comes back as successful when it's clearly not makes it difficult to look for a solution, and it's also very difficult to explain this problem... I hope I have made myself clear enough.

Thank you in advance for any assistance anybody can render. If I have missed any required information please tell me so I can include it. I am very keen to get this resolved as soon as possible.

Answer : Problem: Backup exec not backing up any files - job status is sucessful in spite of this?

After a lengthy call to Symantec support, the problem has been resolved. The engineer figured out that the cause of the problem was because the files I was trying to back up were in DFS, which meant that they could not be backed up using the usual method. Although it doesn't say in the install guide, nor the administrators guide (that I could find, it's a 1600+ page document), if you are backing up DFS you must back it up via the Shadow Copy Components on one of the servers hosting the files. I did not realise that this would be a problem as the files are not being replicated, we only use DFS to make it easier for us to move files to other servers without having to remap all our user's network drives.

There is a KB article for it, however, which is here in case anybody else comes across this issue; http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/296168.htm

Thanks again to dbfarrow for attempting to assist, it is appreciated.