I just ran a backup of 1.48Tb on macOS 10.13.3 using BRU PE 3.2.3 (52) to LTO-6 tape.

It appears that the backup took just under 5 hours, but as far as I can tell the GUI has been sitting there for an additional 11 hours waiting for “Writing catalog to tape … ” to finish, and verify has not begun.

I guess the lack of obvious console messages is my penance for using a UI rather than doing things from the command line (where feedback is generally immediate and useful). I’ve attached a screenshot to this message, the GUI shows that the backup finished 04:51:52 after it began, but the verify hasn’t happened, “Total Elapsed Time” has climbed to 16:57:05, and the message “Writing catalog to tape … ” remains visible.

But, a read of the manual found me a log at /Library/Application Support/BRU PE/log/bruexeclog, and in there I found this:

20180615 22:14:50|35495|zachfine2|[L163] START (r 18.1.1.28), CMD = '/usr/local/bin/bru -elvvvvvvvvv -m -b 2048k -QX -f "ntape0" -'
20180615 22:15:05|35495|zachfine2|[L165] FINISH - 0 warnings, 0 errors, exit code = 0
20180615 22:15:35|35544|zachfine2|[L163] START (r 18.1.1.28), CMD = '/usr/local/bin/bru -c -m -vvvvvvvvv -j -O -A -QB -f ntape0 -QX -L 2018-06-15 Somebody Waiting Backup -'
20180615 22:15:35|35544|zachfine2|[L167] device = ntape0, buffer = 128K bytes, media size = , archive id = 5b249cf78ad8, (Op)
2018-06-16 04:51:55|34817|Zach Fine 2|*** Writing catalog info to tape.
20180616 04:51:56|54084|505|[L163] START (r 18.1.1.28), CMD = '/usr/local/bin/bru -cf ntape0 -L #CATALOG - 5b249cf78ad8 -QB /Library/Application Support/BRU PE/tmp/BRU-5b249cf78ad8'
20180616 04:51:56|54084|505|[W002] "ntape0": can't open archive
20180616 15:26:25|54084|505|[E160] error - received hangup signal (SIGHUP)
20180616 15:26:35|54084|505|[L165] FINISH - 1 warnings, 1 errors, exit code = 2
20180616 19:59:23|6502|Zach Fine 2|[L163] START BRU PE Version 3.2.3 (52)
20180616 19:59:23|6502|Zach Fine 2|[L163] MacPro.lan Mac OS X 10.13.3
20180616 21:16:57|17421|zachfine2|[L165] FINISH - 0 warnings, 1 errors, exit code = 2
20180616 21:17:48|17452|Zach Fine 2|[L163] START BRU PE Version 3.2.3 (52)
20180616 21:17:48|17452|Zach Fine 2|[L163] MacPro.lan Mac OS X 10.13.3
20180616 21:29:05|18230|zachfine2|[L165] FINISH - 0 warnings, 1 errors, exit code = 2
20180616 21:30:01|18312|zachfine2|[L163] START (r 18.1.1.28), CMD = '/usr/local/bin/bru -cf ntape0'
20180616 21:30:01|18312|zachfine2|[W002] "ntape0": can't open archive
20180616 21:30:04|18312|zachfine2|[E159] error - received interrupt signal (SIGINT)
20180616 21:30:04|18312|zachfine2|[L165] FINISH - 1 warnings, 1 errors, exit code = 2
20180616 21:30:08|18318|root|[L165] FINISH - 0 warnings, 1 errors, exit code = 2


So my first thought was — now that it’s been a while and I’ve rebooted and the tape drive appears to be online, maybe I can use the command listed in that log to write the catalog to the tape. I put some quotes around things to make everything sane, hopefully in the proper manner:

MacPro:~ zachfine2$ sudo /usr/local/bin/bru -cf ntape0 -L '#CATALOG - 5b249cf78ad8' -QB "/Library/Application Support/BRU PE/tmp/BRU-5b249cf78ad8"


This appeared to do something:

20180616 22:21:48|20904|root|[L163] START (r 18.1.1.28), CMD = '/usr/local/bin/bru -cf ntape0 -L #CATALOG - 5b249cf78ad8 -QB /Library/Application Support/BRU PE/tmp/BRU-5b249cf78ad8'
20180616 22:21:48|20904|root|[L167] device = ntape0, buffer = 128K bytes, media size =