We had a similar problem after we upgraded to 5.5 last month.  The only difference
        is we were getting error 415.  According to HP, some messages were omitted form the
        system catalog, which were in our case related to cleaning the drive, medit write warnings
        and media read warnings.  We had them do a patch analysis on our system and sure enough
        there is a patch for this problem.  In your case, I would call the RSC and find out what the error
        515 means.

        Hope this helps

        Jack Calandra
        Systems Manager
        AIG, New York

-----Original Message-----
From:   Kevin L. Newman [SMTP:[log in to unmask]@inetgw]
Sent:   Thursday, April 16, 1998 12:58 PM
To:     [log in to unmask]@inetgw
Subject:        Help! - problem with backups

Listeners,

We have a DDS Dat drive that we use to do Lights out backups with.  Recently, we
have been experiencing some rather irritating problems that has left us without
backups on some days, and with all nights production jobs yet to run on other
nights.  I'm hoping that someone here, on this list, has seen similar problems
and knows how to fix this.

We usually place our tape in the drive before we leave at 4:00pm.  At 1:30am, we
have a job that logs on, drops limits, kicks everyone off, stops all of the
other jobs and starts a backup.  We use Roadrunner and have it build a buffer
file that speeds up the amount of time before files are released and users can
access files.  When the files are released, it streams another job that restarts
all of the jobs, and lets users back on.

Our problem is: we were having intermittent problems that happened three
weekends in a row where the tape drive would either see the tape that we put
into the drive as write protected (twice) or it wouldn't recognize that there
even was a tape in the drive (once).  In all instances, we ejected the tape and
pushed it back into the drive and ...yes you guessed it... the backup finished!
We didn't have to do anything but eject and reinsert the tape!

After three weekends of this, we called HP to have them switch the tape drive.
They came, they switched, the problem changed.  Now, we are getting a Roadrunner
error.

#515: An irrecoverable error occurred on device 7.
MPE XL status: Subsystem 113, error -44

When we stayed late last night, and did this within 5-10 minutes of placing the
tape in the drive, all went well.  But at 1:30am, the exact same job gave me the
above messages.  We ejected the tape and pushed it right back in and the backup
was off an writing to the tape.

What gives?  Any ideas?  Okay, I know some of you out there ... how about
productive ideas? ;-)

Kevin "about ready to ventilate a tape drive with a shotgun" Newman