If you are having collisions the first thing I would check is the total
amount of network traffic.
Are you running full or half duplex?
What is the ethernet connection on the Retro server and e-mail server? I.E.
is it a third party card?
> ----------
> From: Marty James
> Reply To: retro-talk
> Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 1999 1:22 AM
> To: retro-talk
> Subject: Re: Retro4.1A and Win98 crash problems
>
> Randy,
>
> We run Retrospect 4.2 to backup about 70 Macs over 4
> different appletalk zones to 12GB (24GB) DSS tapes. We don't backup
> any PCs but we experience vaguely similar problems over the past few
> months.
>
> The backups became intolerably slow (sometimes averaging <
> 8MB/min!) so we upgraded the backup computer to a beefier mac and
> shifted the process to an external drive from which the computer
> boots, runs retrospect and keeps the catalogues (this was to make
> future upgrades easier).
>
> The backups speedup to a comfortable average of about
> 35-40MB/min on average. Currently they take about 12-13hrs so this is
> filling about 1.3 tapes worth...meaning we have to switch tapes in
> the morning and then add the clients that we missing or out of action
> the night before.
>
> The major drama now is the discovery that the backup server
> was the one that was bringing down the email server each night (same
> zone different computer). This lead us to a serious investigation
> revealing that although all our clients are using tcp/ip not
> appletalk retrospect appears to cause major collisions on the network
> resulting in computers that are actively using appletalk (namely the
> email server/DNS server) dropping it's appletalk connection. In which
> case nothing can find it (tcp/ip or appletalk) on the network. You
> need to restart it or switch the appletalk connection to a different
> port and then back again to ethernet....ahhhh!
>
> I'm not 99% sure it's retrospect causing it, but I've tried
> the following to narrow it down:
>
> Changed IP address: no result
> Changed E'net ports: no result
> Changed E'net cards: no result
> Changed system (8.1--> 8.5): no result
> Changed system (8.5--> 8.5.1): no result
> Changed system (8.5.1--> 8.6): no result
> Checked and cleaned extensions: no result
> Booted from a seperate drive to retrospect: no result
> Backed up to a drive instead of tape: no result
> Changed computers (same extnl drive): no result
> Reinstalled retrospect: no result
> Tried 4.0, 4.1i and 4.2: no result
>
> (Not tried yet):
> Move the computer to another zone.
>
> Now here's the weird part:
>
> Retrospect clients, as mentioned earlier, are using the TCP/IP
> protocol stack, same as Netscape does when you surf the Internet from
> the Backup server (just as a test). However, surfing the net causes
> no collisions, but retrospect redlines the collisions.
>
> Also even an appletalk copy will set collisions off....so where is
> the consistency?
>
> If anyone knows of a similar case, a possible cause and if luck would
> have it a solution to the problem please respond ASAP.
>
> Marty
>
>
> >We run a series of nightly backups using Retrospect 4.1A, backing up
> >around 20 Mac's and 20 Win98 PC's. Ever since the Windows backups
> >were added, we've experienced occasional crashes of the backup Mac.
> >Often this has been accompanied by corrupted catalogues (chunk
> >checksum errors).
> >
> >After months of studying it we have found one reproducable problem:
> >if someone shuts down or reboots one of the Win98 PC's while it is
> >being backed up, the backup Mac will often crash. We also have other
> >problems backing up the Windows boxes, with network communications
> >failures on different slower PC's regularly. At first some of PC's
> >were Win95 so we thought that was part of the problem. But we've
> >now upgraded all of them to Win98 and the symptoms are still occuring.
> >
> >There are no other network related problems on these boxes; we
> >use file sharing fine and uses regularly utilize Netscape to access
> >the 'net over tcp/ip connections through a router. All is fine there.
> >
> >In summary: has anyone experienced problems with Mac crashes when
> >backing up Win98 PC's and/or regular "network communications failed"
> >and/or "chunk checksum errors"? Thanks!
> >
> >+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
> >| Computronics Randy Styka, [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
> >| 4N165 Wood Dale Road Phone: 630/941-7767 |
> >| Addison, Illinois 60101 USA |
> >+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
> >
> >
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