The correct log to review is nbpem, the NetBackup Policy Execution Manager log. Cohesity NetBackup documentation states that nbpem creates policy and client tasks and determines when jobs are run, and its logging location is install_path\NetBackup\logs\nbpem on Windows and /usr/openv/logs/nbpem on UNIX
/Linux. In the scheduled backup workflow, nbpem initiates a backup when the job becomes due. It determines whether the policy, schedule, and backup window are valid, retrieves policy information through nbproxy, and then submits the due job to nbjm to obtain a job ID.
Therefore, when an automatic schedule does not launch a backup at the expected time, the first diagnostic focus is the scheduler and policy-evaluation component, not the later job-control or resource-allocation components. nbjm manages submitted jobs after nbpem hands them off, nbrb brokers resources, and nbemm manages media and device/resource database functions. Since the failure occurs before the job launches automatically, nbpem is the authoritative debug log for determining why the policy schedule did not trigger.
Reference topics: Backup process, nbpem logging, and Policy Execution Manager scheduling behavior.