DPM error “Failed to backup as another backup using the same CSV is in progress.”

DPM 2010/2012 is quite resilient backup software. It tries failed backups after 1 hour again. But it does it only once. Sometimes I still have error messages like:

Failed to prepare a Cluster Shared Volume (CSV) for backup as another backup using the same CSV is in progress. (ID 32612 Details: Back up is in progress. Please wait for backup completion before trying this operation again (0x8007173D))

This happens on hyper-v clusters with shared storage. Of course you can run into other type of error messages. To increase the retry count change AutoRerunNumberOfAttempts registry key to a bigger value using following command:

reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\Configuration" /v AutoRerunNumberOfAttempts /t REG_DWORD /d 2

The “/d 2” part specifies the rerun attempts count. I will try with 2 retries and see, whether it gives me less errors to fix on daytime.

To see other registry options see this URL http://blogs.technet.com/b/dpm/archive/2011/06/06/how-to-use-and-troubleshoot-the-auto-heal-features-in-dpm-2010.aspx

How to get rid of multiple Messenger contacts with name “Q” in Skype desktop application

When you are an enthusiastic updater of Skype, then you might stuck in a situation, where you have a lot of contacts with the name Q in Skype:

When I log in from an another Messenger client (for example ebuddy.com), then contact are with normal names.

To get rid of this use following steps:

1. Close Skype from GUI or hit Win+R and type “tskill skype”.
2. Delete Skype user specific profile by hitting Win+R (Start, Run…), type %appdata% and press Enter. From the C:\Users\XXXX\AppData\Roaming\ folder remove or rename the folder with name Skype.
3. Start Skype again and log on with live account.

Of course you will lose all settings (font size, status notifications, automatic save location for received files, privacy settings etc).

How to send e-mail manually using Telnet.exe or PowerShell

Let’s say, you want to send an e-mail to someone@hotmail.com. Then you need to act like a e-mail server.

First of all you need to know which servers serve the e-mail domain (the part after the @ sign). It’s done by using MX records on DNS servers. In our case the domain is hotmail.com. To get the MX records use this command:

nslookup -q=mx hotmail.com 8.8.8.8

The host 8.8.8.8 is good address for external DNS lookups, “hotmail.com” is the domain name and “-q=mx” says nslookup to request only MX records.

The answer section contains several MX records. If you get 0 results, then you cannot proceed (maybe there is a typo in domain name or you don’t have UDP 53 port open to DNS server or something else). Smaller MX preferences mean higher priority. E-mail servers try lower value servers first and if unsuccessful, then use higher value MX records to send e-mails.

Next you need to start “telnet mx1.hotmail.com 25” (you can use any server of those 4 MX records because they all are same priority). When the connection succeeds, type following commands:

helo
mail from:senders@address.com
rcpt to:someone@hotmail.com
data
subject: test

whatever
.
quit

After each line press Enter. Don’t use backspace, because Windows’ telnet.exe doesn’t transmit data at the end of a line, but each character individually. If you fail, press Enter and type the line again (use putty.exe if you need to use backspace).

HELO command needs sometimes the “hostname” after the HELO word separated by space. You can type anything in this place, but some anti-spam measures might want you to use some real name (you can use http://myip.eu to figure out the right hostname to use on your computer).

MAIL and RCPT commands require sometimes e-mail addresses to be inside angle brackets <>. DATA command starts actual e-mail content. You can use just Subject part in the header. Empty line is needed between the header and message body section. Message body will end with a line with a dot (.) as the only character on the line.

If you need to test same stuff more often, then you probably use PowerShell to send the message (instead of Telnet). The command line is pretty simple:

Send-MailMessage -SmtpServer mx1.hotmail.com -To someone@hotmail.com -From senders@address.com -Subject "test" -Body "whatever"