Categories: Error Codes, Backup Storage, ABD, XenServer, Alike v4

Introduction

The error “backup contains no fingerprint data” usually indicates a problem with ABD-based XenServer backups. A full explanation of why the error occurs and what its significance is can be found below.

Please note: This issue effects versions of Alike earlier than v4.5.1. If you are experiencing this error, please upgrade.

An Alike backup job will give the error “Backup contains no fingerprint data” if no meta information about your backup disks was returned from the data acquisition phase to the Windows server running Alike.

While this error could occur for many reasons, this error can mean an issue occurred that caused the job to suddenly abort (if there are no other significant errors that occurred before it).

Here are three examples from our support case history:

1. The root cause was a networking conflict with the ABD IP address. Because Alike lost all contact with the ABD and was unable to communicate with it, the job aborted, leading to the “Backup contains no fingerprint data” error message. The customer identified the network conflict by monitoring IP assignments on the LAN closely.
2. The root cause was a XenServer SR issue that was not reported to Alike. When the customer investigated XenServer logs on Dom0, it became clear that an SR backend failure coincided with the job aborting in Alike. This was a bug with XenServer and was resolved by migrating to an SR that was not affected by the bug.
3. The root causes was insufficient memory on the ABD template. The customer was backing up a VM with 6 drives and the job consistently failed on this VM. By increasing the memory on the ABD template from XenCenter from 128MB to 1GB, the job ran without issue.

Final Notes

When reporting this issue, it is likely that support will ask for your full log archive to determine if the data acquisition phase of the job aborts suddenly. If so, it is likely your root cause is an environmental issue.