Support Tip: After installing DPM 2012 R2 SQL prep on a remote SQL instance already used by shared DPM 2012 SP1 databases, scheduled jobs for those servers no longer run

~ Andy Nadarewistsch

Hi everyone Andy Nadarewistsch here with another DPM support tip for you. With this issue, after installing System Center 2012 R2 Data Protection Manager (DPM 2012 R2) SQL Prep on a remote SQL instance that is already used by shared DPM 2012 Service Pack 1 DPM databases, the scheduled jobs for those DPM 2012 SP1 servers will no longer run. However, the scheduled jobs for the DPM 2012 R2 server will run.

When this occurs you should see an Event ID 208 in the Application log like the one shown below.

Log Name:  Application
Source: SQLSERVERAGENT
Event ID: 208
Level: Warning
Description: SQL Server Scheduled Job ‘abc123’ (xyzpdq) – Status Failed – Invoked on <date time> – Message: The job failed. The Job was invoked by Schedule 33749 (Schedule 2). The last step to run was step 1 (Default JobStep)

If you look in the SQL agent logs, the error points to the file not being found in step 1

<The process could not be created for step 1 of job abc123 (reason: The system cannot find the file specified)>

To check on the file for the job step, go to the SQL server agent jobs on the remote SQL server and find the job ID from the Event ID 208 logged in the Application log. Right-click on it and go to Properties to see the details for the job.

Click “Steps” and this will show the steps for the job. Click “Edit” and that will show you the path for the triggerjob.exe location that the job is looking for.

The path from a DPM 2012 SP1 job is shown below.

The path from a DPM 2012 R2 job is shown here:

CAUSE

DPM 2012 R2 SQL Prep overwrites the triggerjob.exe path on the remote SQL server for DPM 2012 SP1 and changes the path from %DPMInstall%\Program files\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\DPM2012\SQLPrep to %DPMInstall%\Program files\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\DPM2012R2\SQLPrep. This causes SQL to fail in finding triggerjob.exe when DPM 2012 SP1 scheduled jobs are run.

When looking at the %DPMInstall%\Program files\Microsoft Data Protection Manager path you will only see one folder named DPM2012R2 as shown below.

Resolution

To resolve the issue, simply re-run DPM 2012 SP1 SQLPrep. This will recreate the SP1 path for triggerjob.exe, leaving the path for R2 jobs undisturbed.

Andy Nadarewistsch| Senior Support Escalation Engineer | Microsoft GBS Management and Security Division

Get the latest System Center news onFacebookandTwitter:

System Center All Up: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/
System Center – Configuration Manager Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/
System Center – Data Protection Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/
System Center – Orchestrator Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/orchestrator/
System Center – Operations Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/
System Center – Service Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager
System Center – Virtual Machine Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm

Windows Intune: http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsintune/
WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/
The AD RMS blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/rmssupp/

The Forefront Endpoint Protection blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/clientsecurity/
The Forefront Identity Manager blog : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ms-identity-support/
The Forefront TMG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/isablog/
The Forefront UAG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/edgeaccessblog/