Question:
I am running Informix 7.3 on SCO Openserver 5. I run Ontape every morning and it has been going fine. Starting yesterday I’ve been getting the following error:

Archive on rootdbs, onlinedata ABORTED.                               Aborted by client

My tape drive is OK as well as the tapes. I can do a normal CPIO to it and read from it.

Any help would be appreciated.

Answer:
My bet is that you’re reaching the end of tape before your tape driver thinks it is finished. You may want to see if your system console is showing any tape commands, such as “change tape.” If so, someone needs to change the tapes and hit Enter to let the backup continue.

If you’re not getting a message, try cutting the size of the tape by about 10% in your onconfig file or DBA monitor program. This will help if you’re bouncing at the end of the tape.