Acronis Support please respond: Incremental not possible

I'm running Echo Workstation 8206 on an XP Pro SP2 box. I have a differential image run overnight. Sometimes it runs fine, other times it hangs up, waiting for an answer to this message.

I know that inability to see the target drive is one reason for the error below, but are there any others? This is a differential image, so if it can't see a full backup, it should make a new one. I would hope that if the full backup it sees is corrupted, it would also make a new full one. "Last volume of a multi-volume archive" does not apply to differential. What else could produce this message and make the program wait for an operator to key yes or no"? Even in quiet mode it hangs up.

is waiting for user interaction.
Description: Create Differential Backup Archive
From: Disk 1
To file: "J:\Diff.tib"
Password protected
Compression: Normal

Problem Info: Incremental backup is not possible.
Problem Details: The file you have chosen is not the Acronis True Image backup, or the file is corrupted, or this is not the last volume of multi-volume archive.

Do you wish to proceed with the current file name? If you proceed, the chosen file will be overwritten and the full backup will be created.

Otherwise, you will create an incremental backup by choosing the valid archive file name or the last volume of multi-volume archive.

 

Hello bmiller,

Thank you for using Acronis Corporate Products

Could you please clarify where backup files are placed (whether they are on internal, external, or network hard drive)? Have you validated the full backup file? Also, please attach a log file of the failed operation to your post.

Thank you.

--
Oleg Lee

 

Thanks for your reply. The backup files are on a WD Elements 1TB USB hard drive that is shared. 2 other PCs back up to different directories on the same drive. The PC that the drive is connected to is the one that sometimes gives this error message and hangs, waiting for user input, and other times runs normally. Monday night all 3 backups ran fine. Last night the one that the drive is connected to hung, giving this same message, and the other 2, which run at different times later in the night, ran normally.

I haven't tried validating the backup - the next time I'm on-site, I'll schedule a validate job to run before the backup. It's a busy customer and it's difficult to coordinate down-time. I do have a recent backup copy in my office, so I can see what the log file reveals about these errors and I'll post it.

Is there a workaround that will automatically answer yes to the message so that subsequent jobs run on time? When I had the "do not prompt for user input" option checked, instead of this message, I got an email message that it could not run in Quiet Mode. I would like to know if there's a problem with the backup file, but if it's corrupt, there's no choice but to write a new one, so I would like the program to just do it, instead of waiting for me to say Yes. Has anyone else had this problem?

 

Here's the log file from an instance of this error. Can you tell me what caused it?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<log uuid="8E131056-1F59-4BA9-AAD0-AB88C154E9A2" product="Acronis*True*Image*Echo Workstation" version="1.0" build="174" task="C58D264B-2E11-4A84-823F-6609526FE397" >
<event id="1" level="2" module="100" code="2" time="1240018204" message="The &quotiff not Sunday&quot; operation started" />
<event id="2" level="2" module="1" code="503" time="1240018206" message="Analyzing partition 0-0..." />
<event id="3" level="2" module="1" code="503" time="1240018206" message="Analyzing partition 1-1..." />
<event id="4" level="2" module="1" code="503" time="1240018206" message="Analyzing partition C:..." />
<event id="5" level="2" module="1" code="503" time="1240018206" message="Analyzing partition 0-0..." />
<event id="6" level="2" module="1" code="503" time="1240018207" message="Analyzing partition J:..." />
<event id="7" level="2" module="1" code="503" time="1240018207" message="Analyzing partition K:..." />
<event id="8" level="3" module="100" code="11" time="1240018207" message="Priority changed to Low priority" />
<event id="9" level="2" module="1" code="503" time="1240018207" message="Analyzing partition 1-1..." />
<event id="10" level="2" module="1" code="503" time="1240018207" message="Analyzing partition C:..." />
<event id="11" level="2" module="4" code="19" time="1240018208" message="" line_tag="0x64A31B1B5AFDA98F"/>
<event id="12" level="3" module="100" code="108" time="1240018208" message="Incremental backup is not possible.
The file you have chosen is not the Acronis True Image backup, or the file is corrupted, or this is not the last volume of multi-volume archive.

Do you wish to proceed with the current file name? If you proceed, the chosen file will be overwritten and the full backup will be created.

Otherwise, you will create an incremental backup by choosing the valid archive file name or the last volume of multi-volume archive.

: Yes/No" />

 

Does the computer this mainly happens on have any other process that the others don't have running? I'm thinking of things that may lock drive access such as Exchange or Database operations.

Are there any warnings or errors at approximately the same time in Windows Event Manager?

Colin

 

Thanks for the reply. This one is running MSSQLServer, but there are no database operations scheduled for the time the backup is running (after hours).

I haven't checked Windows Event Manager, but I will do that tomorrow.

 

Might be worth suspending SQL transactions at the beginning of TI and restarting them at close, even if it is actually doing nothing.


Colin

 

Hello all,

Thank you for using Acronis True Image

bmiller, as a workaround you can set Silent mode (Tools - > Options - > Default backup options -> Error handling -> Tick "Silent mode" box).

Meanwhile, try do the following:

Switch your external hard drive to "Optimize for performance" mode:

a. Right-click the My Computer icon and then click Manage.
b. Click the Device Manager icon.
c. Click the plus (+) sign next to Disk Drives.
d. Double-click the USB hard drive string.
e. Click the Policies button then click Optimize for performance and mark all checkboxes

Thank you.

--
Oleg Lee