I-hate-Symantec



  • So I've been holding onto an old version of Backup Exec for years because it was the last version released by Veritas before Symantec bought them and I knew Symantec would ruin it like everything else they bought. I finally decided to bite the bullet and upgrade to the new version so I could take advantage of newer features and have been banging my head ever since. I could probably write a book on the WTFs I've encountered just trying to get one simple Exchange server backed up, like this gem that keeps haunting me:

    [url]http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH184002[/url]

    Basically, my backup job completes but throws an exception because I'm backing up a physical server and don't have the option to convert to a virtual machine image enabled. Their reasoning is because it doesn't support converting to a virtual machine on physical systems with certain types of disks like network/external and Windows dynamic disks.

    So, my backup jobs are failing because it doesn't support an option that I don't even have enabled. (oh, and the disks in that system are basic, directly attached, SCSI disks so it should meet their criteria for support)



  • @error_NoError said:

    http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH184002
    "If all disk drives found in a physical server are unsupported, a normal, Simplified System Protection (SSP) enabled backup job will display an alert "Failed to load the configuration xml file."

    Right.  Because that makes so much more sense than an a message which says "all disk drives found are unsupported".



  • @El_Heffe said:

    @error_NoError said:

    http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH184002
    "If all disk drives found in a physical server are unsupported, a normal,
    Simplified System Protection (SSP) enabled backup job will display an
    alert "Failed to load the configuration xml file."

    Right.  Because that makes so much more sense than an a message which says "all disk drives found are unsupported".

    The obvious answer is to have a dialog pop up:

    Error<input type="button" disabled="disabled" value="X" style="float:right">
    There was an error.
    <input type="button" value="OK">


  •  @Ben L. said:

    @El_Heffe said:

    @error_NoError said:

    http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH184002
    "If all disk drives found in a physical server are unsupported, a normal, Simplified System Protection (SSP) enabled backup job will display an alert "Failed to load the configuration xml file."

    Right.  Because that makes so much more sense than an a message which says "all disk drives found are unsupported".

    The obvious answer is to have a dialog pop up:

    Error
    There was an error.

    That dialog box is more informative than the original error.



  • We used to have some backup software (Time Navigator, I think) which had an error message that went, "disaster: something has gone wrong". Very descriptive.



  •  My favorite is still the one I found in some ancient DVR software I was replacing. 

     

    Stop that

     

    It assumed that if any file it wanted was locked, even by itself, it meant someone was mucking around with the file and started all over again.



  • @NoOneImportant said:

     My favorite is still the one I found in some ancient DVR software I was replacing.

    It assumed that if any file it wanted was locked, even by itself, it meant someone was mucking around with the file and started all over again.

    Ah, memories of Windows disk defraggers of yore ...



  • My personal favorite isn't even an error message. Our POS (stands for Point Of Sale, no really, not what you're thinking) system has some . . . undocumented funtions (like mass deleting SKUs, which can go very wrong). One of which requires an undocumented flag to actually do it's purpose (without it, it pretends to run, even prints out the report saying what it didn't do).

    And one that you have to go in to a secret administrative screen, type in an undocumented command, put in the undocumented flag, and get a warning that says "We recommend you not use this function, even if we told you to."



  • @Ben L. said:

    @El_Heffe said:

    @error_NoError said:

    http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH184002
    "If all disk drives found in a physical server are unsupported, a normal,
    Simplified System Protection (SSP) enabled backup job will display an
    alert "Failed to load the configuration xml file."

    Right.  Because that makes so much more sense than an a message which says "all disk drives found are unsupported".

    The obvious answer is to have a dialog pop up:

    Error
    There was an error.

    That looks nigh on identical to most Backup Exec errors, barring only that the title header bit is red.


Log in to reply