maintenance plan does not delete old .bak files

I have a maintenance plan that backs up our DB every night. It's supposed to delete any .bak files older that a day. However, it does not delete the old .bak files and after a couple of nights, the backups fail because the disk is out of space.
Why don't the old .bak files delete like they're supposed to?
Are you trying to perform log backup? Is there a database targeted which is in simple recovery mode? If sop,
sqlmaint will not remove old files for any database in the group.
Below KB might help:
http://support.microsoft.com/default...&Product=sql2k
Also, check out below great troubleshooting suggestions from Bill H at MS:
-- Log files don't delete --
This is likely to be either a permissions problem or a sharing violation
problem. The maintenance plan is run as a job, and jobs are run by the
SQLServerAgent service.
Permissions:
1. Determine the startup account for the SQLServerAgent service
(Start|Programs|Administrative tools|Services|SQLServerAgent|Startup). This
account is the security context for jobs, and thus the maintenance plan.
2. If SQLServerAgent is started using LocalSystem (as opposed to a domain
account) then skip step 3.
3. On that box, log onto NT as that account. Using Explorer, attempt to
delete an expired backup. If that succeeds then go to Sharing Violation
section.
4. Log onto NT with an account that is an administrator and use Explorer to
look at the Properties|Security of the folder (where the backups reside)
and ensure the SQLServerAgent startup account has Full Control. If the
SQLServerAgent startup account is LocalSystem, then the account to consider
is SYSTEM.
5. In NT, if an account is a member of an NT group, and if that group has
Access is Denied, then that account will have Access is Denied, even if
that account is also a member of the Administrators group. Thus you may
need to check group permissions (if the Startup Account is a member of a
group).
6. Keep in mind that permissions (by default) are inherited from a parent
folder. Thus, if the backups are stored in C:\bak, and if someone had
denied permission to the SQLServerAgent startup account for C:\, then
C:\bak will inherit access is denied.
Sharing violation:
This is likely to be rooted in a timing issue, with the most likely cause
being another scheduled process (such as NT Backup or Anti-Virus software)
having the backup file open at the time when the SQLServerAgent (i.e., the
maintenance plan job) tried to delete it.
1. Download filemon and handle from www.sysinternals.com.
2. I am not sure whether filemon can be scheduled, or you might be able to
use NT scheduling services to start filemon just before the maintenance
plan job is started, but the filemon log can become very large, so it would
be best to start it some short time before the maintenance plan starts.
3. Inspect the filemon log for another process that has that backup file
open (if your lucky enough to have started filemon before this other
process grabs the backup folder), and inspect the log for the results when
the SQLServerAgent agent attempts to open that same file.
4. Schedule the job or that other process to do their work at different
times.
5. You can use the handle utility if you are around at the time when the
job is scheduled to run.
If the backup files are going to a \\share or a mapped drive (as opposed to
local drive), then you will need to modify the above (with respect to where
the tests and utilities are run).
Finally, inspection of the maintenance plan's history report might be
useful.
Thanks,
Bill Hollinshead
Microsoft, SQL Server
Tibor Karaszi, SQL Server MVP
http://www.karaszi.com/sqlserver/default.asp
"KimL" <kiml@.colonialsavings.com> wrote in message news:303A4869-240C-4051-9DFA-4CCAB1F78C9F@.microsoft.com...
> I have a maintenance plan that backs up our DB every night. It's supposed to delete any .bak files older
that a day. However, it does not delete the old .bak files and after a couple of nights, the backups fail
because the disk is out of space.
> Why don't the old .bak files delete like they're supposed to?
|||I found the answer....it was a problem between the chair and the keyboard. I was examining the steps in the maintenance job and discovered that I had selected "every one WEEK" instead of "every one day"
It seems that just the very act of posting my problem here led me to the solution.
thanks for your suggestions