Diagnosing Command Line Utilities

All TapeTrack command line utilities have dual output streams when executed.

The stdout stream is used to pass the report or output from the utility, eg using TMSS10Inventory, the stdout stream passes the inventory report to the command prompt window, or file if the stream is redirected.

Sample Output

             System: TapeTrack
          Report ID: 100
 Report Description: Inventory List
    Production Time: Friday, July 04, 2025 - 13:08:27 (AUS Eastern Standard Time)
       Report Width: 164 bytes

 Seq.   Barcode              Location                       Repository                     Expiry     Next Move  Last Move           GDup CDup Container
 ------ -------------------- ------------------------------ ------------------------------ ---------- ---------- ------------------- ---- ---- -------------------
      1 US01.DLT.100224J6    No-Alloc [0]                   Library                        Permanent  Permanent                         1    1
      2 US01.DLT.100248J6    No-Alloc [0]                   Library                        Permanent  Permanent                         1    1
      3 US01.DLT.100256J6    No-Alloc [0]                   Library                        Permanent  Permanent                         1    1
      4 US01.DLT.100542J6    No-Alloc [0]                   Library                        Permanent  Permanent                         1    1
 ------ -------------------- ------------------------------ ------------------------------ ---------- ---------- ------------------- ---- ---- --------------------

The stderr stream is used to provide diagnostic information and error messages, eg. using TMSS10Inventory, the stderr stream has information on the program, server statistics, attributes passed for execution, log in details and any errors that have occured.

Sample Output

ZBT001N-13:05:14 TMSS10Inventory (c) GazillaByte 1998-2025
ZBT002N-13:05:14 Compiled Mar 15 2025 at 17:29:21
ZBT010I-13:05:14 this program produces an Inventory Report of all selected Volumes
ZBT006N-13:05:14 Running Under Microsoft Windows (10.0.26100.4202 Desktop)
ZBT000N-13:05:14 Host is Little Endian
ZBT000N-13:05:14 Host is ASCII
ZBT000N-13:05:14 Binary is 64 bit
ZBT000N-13:05:14 Current Working Directory is C:\Users\diffl\OneDrive\Desktop\temp\TMSS10Reconcile
ZBT000N-13:05:14 Executing Module is C:\Program Files\TapeTrack\TapeTrack Server Utilities\bin\tapetrack\TMSS10Inventory.exe
ZBT004N-13:05:14 Today is Friday, July 04, 2025
ZBT005N-13:05:14 Running on GazillaByte

Command line programs, while they can be run directly in a command prompt, are usually executed via a batch file on Windows or bash script on Linux servers.

Open Windows Scheduler, on the left panel, select the directory required to display the scheduled events in the top panel. Locate the process in question and select it to display the process detail in the lower panel. Selecting the Actions tab, the location of the batch file is described in the trigger start a program.

In this example you can see the batch file Daily.bat is located at C:Program Files\TapeTrack\TapeTrack Framework Server\scripts

navigate to the batch file using File Explorer, right click on the batch file and select Edit or Open in Notepad to view the code.

The file may contain different variables at the top, setting various actions for the creation of the report or task. Following this will be a line of code calling the command line program with various attributes followed by the redirections of the stdout and stderr streams.

TMSS10Inventory -S user:-pass@serveraddress -V "US01.*.*" > ./reports/Inventory_Report.txt 2> ./reports/Inventory_Report_stderr.txt

The redirect > redirects the stdout stream, Inventory_Report.txt, to the reports folder in the current directory.

The redirect 2> redirects the stderr stream, called Inventory_Report_stderr.txt to the reports folder in the current directory.

If the file location uses variables in the path, you will need to find the value of the variable to decode the path.

Standard variables set by TapeTrack upon installation include

TMSS10BACK=C:\Program Files\TapeTrack\TapeTrack Framework Server\var\backup
TMSS10DB=C:\Program Files\TapeTrack\TapeTrack Framework Server\var\db
TMSS10REPORTS=C:\Program Files\TapeTrack\TapeTrack Framework Server\var\reports
TMSS10SCRIPTS=C:\Program Files\TapeTrack\TapeTrack Framework Server\scripts
TMSS10SYNCBASE=C:\Program Files\TapeTrack\TapeTrack Sync\

For example

TMSS10MoveList -S %TTSERVER% > "%TMSS10REPORTS%\movelist_report.txt" 2> "%TMSS10REPORTS%\movelist_error.txt" 

The stderr stream is directed to C:\Program Files\TapeTrack\TapeTrack Framework Server\var\reports\movelist_error.txt

Using a file zipping program, such as winzip or 7zip, zip up the files (batch file, stdout and stderr files) and attach the file to the support ticket along with the best description of the problem you are experiencing.