SAP Note 10664 - cpio error when starting BRBACKUP/BRARCHIVE

Symptom

BRBACKUP/BRARCHIVE terminate during the first tape access with the following error messages:
BR278E ... cpio -ivB .tape.hdr0 < /dev/...
Out of phase [-- get help] | Bad header - checksum error
Not a cpio file | Not a cpio archive | Bad magic number in archive
Can't read input | End of volume | End of media | End of tape
Cannot read from the specified input | impossible header type
BR279E Return code from ... cpio -ivB .tape.hdr0 < /dev/...
BR218E Reading tape label from /dev/rmt/0mn failed.
BR236I Perhaps tape initialization with option '-i force' required.

Other terms

..

Reason and Prerequisites

The tape that BRBACKUP/BRARCHIVE attempts to write to has not been initialized. BRBACKUP/BRARCHIVE attempts to read the tape header and cannot find it.

Other causes for 'Out of phase':
- damaged tape
- damaged tape station
- use of device_type=tape_auto, and tape_size too small so that the
Autoloader carries out a tape switch without brbackup realizing this
and rewinding the (new) tape after the backup to read the header of
the (previous) tape which fails due to the tape switch.

Solution
The tape must be initialized with BRBACKUP/BRARCHIVE, e.g.:
BRBACKUP/BRARCHIVE -i force -v .

Key word: BRBACKUP