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tapeback.lock exists .. you cannot access the Vet System

When I try to start up the vet System I see the message:

tapeback.lock exists indicating a backup is in progress at present. You are not allowed access to the system. Please try later.

When tapeback starts a backup it creates a 'Lock' file to stop multiple invocations of itself running. As adding work to a file that is being backed up can corrupt the file, the vet software will also check for this lock file and abort if found.

If this message is present first thing in the morning then there is a good chance the overnight backup never finished and has paused/stoped/hung.

To clear the lock to allow work to continue, login as root and use the following command.

# rm /tmp/tapeback.lock

Note: You must also investigate why, there is no point in just removing the lock and forgetting about it, the backup is corrupt.

Tapeback is very limited in the logging it provides. Your only option is to kill the tar process (see below) and run a manual backup to see if an error message is displayed.

Makeing sure tar has finished, use:

# ps -ef | grep tar

If you see just one line e.g.

  root 19679 19678  3 08:22:01   tty12    00:00:00 grep tar

Then there is no problem, otherwise use the kill command to kill any of the tar processes e.g. kill -9 pid

Remember, removing the lock file is NOT enough, you must find out why it was still there.