If you dump to a tape using the dump database or dump transaction commands, and specify a block size value which is higher than the maximum blocksize of a device as determined by Backup Server, then the dump or the load may fail on certain tape drives. An operating system error message displays; for example, on an 8mm tape drive on HP the error message is:
Backup Server: 4.141.2.22: [2] The ’write’ call failed for device ’xxx’ with error number 22 (Invalid argument). Refer to your operating system documentation for further details.
You should not specify a block size greater than the device’s block size stored in the tape device configuration file in $SYBASE/backup_tape.cfg. The block size for a device is the fifth field of the line in the tape device configuration file.
This error occurs only on tape drives where tape auto config is run; that is, the device models are not hard-coded in Backup Server code.
