DPM Communication Issues

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DPM Agent displaying as 'ERROR'

  • Most of the time the fix for this issue is to either restart the DPMRA service on the client server. If this does not resolve the issue the agent will then need to be refreshed on the DPM Server, the agent status should then display as 'OK' status. Jobs will then start if there are jobs running in the 'jobs in progress' tab or they will run as scheduled.

DNS Issues on client server

In order to resolve this you need to first ensure that there is proper Domain Name Resolution between the two servers (the client server and the DPM Server). For more in depth information on this issue check the following links for further help:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/hh872936.aspx

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/hh872945.aspx

Agent Re-install

  • Agent re-installation is normally required when there are issues with communication between a client server and the DPM server. An agent re-installation is normally only required in extreme cases such as a domain having issues of some form then it can be useful to get the agents re-installed on a 'WORKGROUP' or get a windows engineer to investigate the issues with the domain. Before re-installing I would recommend first verifying that the issue isn't one of the issues outlined in this article as re-installing an agent is normally done as a last resort.

Drive volumes having issues transferring data

  • In some cases this can occur with Drive volumes, when this occurs standard procedure is to ask Windows if they can perform a 'disk check' on the drive(s) that are affected. If this then doesn't work after the disk check has been performed we then have to ask the client if we can purge and re-create the backup by re-adding it into DPM. In most of cases this will resolve the issue. If ANY purging or recreation of any backups need to be done then we ALWAYS ask for client permission first.

Agent displays as 'OK' but is unable to transfer data

There is sometimes the possibility of a rare issue occurring once a server that is being backed up by DPM is renamed if the server is in a 'WORKGROUP' this can cause issues with DPM not transferring data even though it WILL show up in DPM with an 'OK' status. In this instance you will have most likely ruled out the other possible factors . If you believe there to be communication issues and if the client server has a different 'HOSTNAME' to the one listed in the DPM 'AGENTS' tab. Restarting 'DPMRA' can sometimes resolve issues like this however you will be looking to get the DPM server and client server to be able to communicate between each other again. First you will want to log in to the client server that is having issues communicating. We will then want to check the 'HOSTNAME' of the server in CMD, if this doesn't match what we have recorded either in Tech DB or on the 'AGENTS' tab in DPM then we will need to re-establish eh connection as the DPM server will be trying to communicate with the server over its old name.

This is done by running the following SetdpmServer command =

  • IMPORTANT - YOU WILL NEED TO NAVIGATE TO THIS FOLDER IN ORDER FOR THIS COMMAND TO WORK:
    • C:\Program Files\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\DPM\bin

SetDpmServer.exe -dpmServerName (SERVER NETBIOS NAME) -isNonDomainServer -userName (SERVER NETBIOS NAME)

Once this command had been run it will ask you to set a password, this password should have already been set on the client server in the details section and should look something like this DPM-idxxxxx (this is usually DPM-(the id of the server). Make sure to check the passwords section on the client server as this password will have been set when the server was added to DPM in the first place so there should already be one there. These accounts are set up to be used with servers that are connecting to the DPM server via a 'WORKGROUP'. Once you have run the command and set the password twice (as you have to confirm it) you will then want to go to the DPM server and install an agent. You then want to attach agents on a 'Computer in a workgroup or untrusted domain' you then need to enter the NETBIOS name of the server 'EXACTLY' as it is displayed on the agent server itself you will then also copy the user account and password that was used in the SetDpmServer section. After clicking next you should then be informed that the agent installation is successful as the agent will have been installed previously on the server but will have been previously registered under the old NETBIOS/HOSTNAME of the server. After this you will then need to add what was being backed up previously under the old name back into protection and add a member and then remove the old data for the old name. However, if this hasn't worked you will then most likely need to re-install the agent.


In the event that any of the fixes outlined in this article don't aid in the resolution of the issue then there could be some other issues such as:

DPM User Account Password(s)

If the DPM server you are looking at has an 'Unreachable' or an agent error and the server(s) are on a workgroup then the most likely cause of the issue is due to the DPM user account password on EITHER the client server or the DPM server being incorrect, this is normally down to the user account's password being able to expire. Whereas as this is a service account it is recommended that after setting up these accounts we set the password to never expire. You will need to first log in to the affected CLIENT servers and check to see if the password is set to be changed next time the user logs in then this is what is causing the issue. In order to resolve this open 'CMD' and 'cd' to EITHER C:\DPM\Microsoft System Center 2012 R2\DPM\DPM\bin or D:\DPM\Microsoft System Center 2012 R2\DPM\DPM\bin (this can vary based on DPM version or if DPM is installed on the C or D drive). Now you will want to enter the following command, this will then allow you to change the password associated to the DPM user account. SetDpmServer.exe -dpmServerName <serverName> -isNonDomainServer -updatePassword (this account will already be in techDB so find the account and copy and paste it in) this will then ask you to type the password and then ask you again to re-enter the password. Once this is done you need to repeat the process on the DPM server except you need to run this command instead Update-NonDomainServerInfo –PSName Finance01 –dpmServerName Server01. This should have worked and you will now need to look at the agents tab and refresh the agents for the affected servers.

DCOM Ports

DCOM ports for DPM need to be configured.

0MB Transfer Issue

This is due to a DPMRA timeout and currently there isn't a known fix to this issue, the best way to resolve it is to either restart DPMRA or set a scheduled task to end the process and start the service everyday at a certain time or to restart every few hours.

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