Unable to copy data to or from LTO tape in Windows Explorer?

Are you seeing Windows Explorer - Error: 0x800703e6 when attempting to use your LTO tapes, new or existing?

ISSUE

There is a known issue within Windows, after Windows 10 Security Patch Version KB5025221 (April 11, 2023); and Windows 11 Security Patch Version KB5023706 (March 14th 2023). The issue affects LTFS capabilities on writing data when using Windows Explorer. Note that Windows Server 2016 and 2019 are not effected by this bug.

Please note that IBM have issued end of life notification for the Windows version of LTFS at the end of April 2023, version 2.4.5 will be the final version of LTFS for Windows OS. So there will be no updates to fix this bug from IBM or Micrsoft.

MITIGATION

Uninstall the security patches:

KB5025221
KB5023706

Please reference this article from Microsoft on uninstalling Windows Updates:

[How to uninstall a Windows update]

WORKAROUND

If it isn't possible for you or your organisation to perform the uninstall of the updates we've found that for most customers the workaround of installing [TeraCopy] has been successful for them. Please note that Symply does not support TeraCopy.

Symply encourages users to move to using LTFS on the macOS or Linux (Red Hat / SUSE), should they require future LTFS updates.

If you have any questions please submit a [support ticket]