Cannot overwrite active tape

This article is a part of the Troubleshooting collection.

Problem

The following error from amdump(8):

cannot overwrite active tape

Solution

Check if the correct tape is used. Amanda expects the tape given by

  amadmin <conf> tape

Check that your tapecycle is set to at least one greater than dumpcycle (amcheck(8) should show a WARNING if this is not the case), otherwise you might try to overwrite a tape that is still in the active dumpcycle. Amanda prevents you from doing that, by refusing to overwrite that tape.