Anyone with Managed Directory Limits Problem

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by shieber, Oct 25, 2006.

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  1. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    Well, I've confirmed that on some machines the cumulative file size limit and the file count limit do not work when backing up to a managed directory even when the destination is chosen from the "Backup Locations" and all the steps prescribed in the manual are performed.

    For example, say the file count limit is 2 and the files size limit is 1 MB. As long as you run tasks to backup to that directory (selected from under the "Backup Locations") ATI keeps making files without deleting any, past 1 MB and past 2. The files just keep stacking up. Log says the files size and file count are each checked and each test passed! When it gets to the 3rd file it should not pass the test and delete one of the existing files to make room for the new backup.

    I went so far as to again uninstall ATI, and with Regcleaner scrub out all registry entries with "Acronis" or "Trueimage" in them., and then reinstall ATI 10. The probs still exist. I did get the managed directory limits to work on one machine but not on two others that I have tried. Acronis support responded quickly to my request and in a back and forth of emails, I sent them logs, step by step rundowns on the process I was using, sys info, etc.

    They finally said they were bumping it up to a supervisor.
    If anyone else runs into this, please contact support -- with more info they might be able to track down the problem.

    thanks,
    sh
     
    Last edited: Oct 26, 2006
  2. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    Re: Anyone with Managed Directory Limits Problem-- a fix

    Convinced that this had to be a problem with what was on the system disk or the registry and not a hardware issue. I tried a few things. Finally I found something that worked, a comeplete and total purge of all things ATI from the disk and then a reinstall. Just uninstalling didn't do it. Uninstalling and scrubbing the driectory didin't do it.


    So I did this:
    Out with the old, and I mean all of the old:
    I uninstalled from the Control Panel and rebooted.
    I used JV16 PowerTools 2006 Registry Finder to find and delete all registry entries with "trueimage" or Acronis" in

    them. (There were a lot of such entries.)

    I manually deleted the C:\Program files\Acronis directory and subdirectories.
    I manually deleted the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Acronis directory and all subdirectories.
    I manually deleted C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Applicaton Data\Acronis and subdirectories and all contents

    except for the script files in case this didn't work and I needed to use them again. The script files are in

    C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Applicaton Data\Acronis\TrueImage\Scripts

    I manually deleted the .cfg files from the managed directories that I had created thus far.

    In with the new:
    I rebooted and installed ATI 10. I did a complete install even though I don't use the BART PE stuff, but who knows

    what matters in the install?

    I rebooted after installing ATI 10 and loaded ATI 10.

    In ATI 10 Backup Locations I created new directories and gave limits.
    I created new tasks with ATI 10 Task Scheduler that used the new Baackup Locations as the target directories.

    I ran a task several times and the limits were enforced. Finally, whew!

    This proceedure has worked on 2 diff models of PCs on which I was having limit enforcement failure with ATI 10.
     
  3. BlackCat3

    BlackCat3 Registered Member

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    Hi Shieber.

    I tried this without the benefit of the registry tool which you used, and found that I couldn't remove the Acronis Scheduler service key using regedit. When I re-installed ATI 10 (mine is the V9 -> 10 upgrade installation) I entered both my ATI 9 and 10 installation keys and the installation went up to about 99% and then rolled back without any indication why. Perhaps it couldn't install the Acronis scheduler due this registry key which I couldn't delete.

    Is your ATI 10 a V10 installation or an upgrade from V9 like mine? Has anyone else successfully uninstalled ATI 10 upgrade and re-installed it without installing ATI 9 again first? This is supposed to be possible and, of course, it's required for Shieber's solution so that the ATI 9 registry keys don't re-appear.

    At least ATI 10 allowed me to restore my C: partition to get my previous ATI 10 installation working again... :cautious:
     
  4. d.chatten

    d.chatten Registered Member

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    I have done this witout a problem, what i did was uninstall ATI 10, then i used CCleaner to clear out the registry, then i deleted all the files and folders in the C:\Documents and Settings\My Name\Local Settings\Temp, i then installed ATI 10 upgrade and entered the serial for ATI 10 first, then the serial for ATI 9 and works well.

    If you still have problems try unistalling ATI 10, re-install ATI 9 restart your system then uninstall ATI 9, run CCleaner and empty the Temp folder and install ATI 10 and all should be fine.

    Hope this helps.
     
    Last edited: Oct 27, 2006
  5. BlackCat3

    BlackCat3 Registered Member

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    Thanks very much d.chatten, it did indeed help:

    1. Installed ccleaner (useful application - thanks for the tip!)
    2. Uninstalled ATI 10.
    3. Rebooted. The Acronis scheduler task was still present in services after reboot. (Must ask Acronis why this is.)
    4. Ran ccleaner.
    5. Installed ATI 10 successfully.

    I'll have to test the backup location limits again, but at least I now have a means to re-install ATI 10 - thanks.
     
  6. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    Mine was an upgrade. but I tried installing it over ver 9 and uninstalling and reinstalling. Didn't matter. After uninstalling, you need to reboot, then scrub the directory, then reboot again. After that, the trueimage service entry should no longer show up under services. You can check this using msconfig.exe.

    You can get JV power tools here:
    http://www.macecraft.com/

    The regfinder tool in the package if very good. Don't use the regcleaner tool -- that only finds orphaned entries according to certain tests. Use the REgfinder so that you find all the entries. Regfinder finds all the strings with the search term at once and you can select from that list then those that you want to delete and delete them all at once. You'll find after uninstalling ATI that there are many entries left behind in HKLU, HKLM, and HKLC. It's the last two that really matter. And note that after the registry scrub, you must reboot for the scrub to take full effect.

    My suggestion is to try the process I outlined and see if that helps.
    Let us know if it does,
    sh
     
    Last edited: Oct 27, 2006
  7. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    If you install over ver 9, ATI installation will ask for your ATI 10 serial number. If ATI 9 isn't installed then the ATI 10 installer will also ask for your previous (ATI 9) serial number after you enter the ATI 10 serial number.

    In any case, my recommendation regarding ATI 10 if you have any problems after installing over ATI 9 is to uninstall, scrub the registry, and delete the directories I mentioned in my prior post at the start of this thread. A number of the directories will then be deleted that are not deleted by the uninstal ATi uninstaller and are not recreated by ATI 10 -- genuine leftovers.

    I know that many have no issues installing directly over ATI 9, but some of us have had ATI 10 probs and the total scrub (uninstall, registry scrub, and directory deletion) seems to be the thing needed. I fiddled for days trying everything imaginable to get the managed directory limits to work and the only thing that did was the total 3-way scrub.

    I don't know why. I don't think Acronis does either at this point. Some file left behind that runs instead of a new file (why isn't it overwrriten with the new install?) Perhaps it's just some confusion in the registry? Unlikely since a registry scrub and reinstall insn't enough to fix the probs.

    With a good registry tool, it's not hard and doesn't take long to find all the registry entries with "Acronis" or "trueimage" and delete them.

    I got ATI 10 becaus eof the managed directories functions. Now that I have them working, I'm delighted with ATI 10 functionality. So long post-commands and batch files. I still run the my Acronis scheduled tasks from Windows Task scheduler becasue that scheduler will wake a computer form S3 standby to run a backup and the Acronis scheduler won't. It will be nice if that's a check-the-box option in the next version so that one doesn't have to hunt down the task files to make the Windows Task Scheduler entries. But still, ATI 10 is a big leap forward from using batch files to name and delete backups.

    If Acronis figures out why the total 3-way scrub is needed, I'll feel confident enough in ATI 10 to start order multiple copies for the PCs at work to replaced the current ATI 9s. For now, I'll just use it on my home PC.

    Ah well, version X.0 of any software is always ab it rocky ;-)
     
  8. sawxray

    sawxray Registered Member

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    Thank you for the wonderful, detailed posts.

    Unfortunately, after following all the steps to uninstall and re-install (with a full cleanup of the registry as noted above), I have the same exact problem as before:

    I set up a rogue backup task with one full and 3 incremental backups, set the backup location to accept only 4 backups, and run the task repeatedly. No matter, no file is deleted. I get a message in the log file:

    Check for 'number of backups' rule violation is started. Set number:4

    No violation is detected. The following rule was checked:by backup count

    I DO get the appropriate number of incremental files after each full backup, but can not for the life of me get the file number limit to kick in.

    Any further suggestions?
     
  9. sawxray

    sawxray Registered Member

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    After a ridiculous amount of time spent reading forums, searching the web, reading the manual, uninstalling/cleaning/installing, I found the following:

    If I password-protect the archive, the rules don't work.

    If I don't password-protect, the rules work fine.

    I don't like this, as I don't want someone stealing my external HD and having access to my information, but at least I get to back up my machine.

    Any suggestions? Acronis, is this a bug?

    Thanks
     
  10. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    Hmmm. I suspect the password protection is preventing deletion from within ATI without first giving the password but the program isn't querying for the password. I'm not sure how Acronis will handle this but it needs some kind of resolution.
     
  11. Luminous

    Luminous Registered Member

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    I too have been having these issues. Wasted ages trying to sort the problems out as I KNEW I was backing up the the managed backup location, and not the directory itself.

    Even after doing that I am still not able to get the size and file limit rules to work :mad:

    Going to try removing password protection and try again. If it really is down to the password protection, that is one huge bug to have got through QC :eek:
     
  12. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    Would like to hear from Acronis on this. Hae you posted to Tech Support?
     
  13. SenorBumbles

    SenorBumbles Registered Member

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    Hmmm....I was having the exact same problem. I too am using password-protected backups. This is absolutely ridiculous. I know people have already bitched about TI10 being shoved out the door too quickly I am am beginning to agree. Boooo Acronis.
     
  14. Luminous

    Luminous Registered Member

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    Nope, removing the password protection has not fixed the issue.

    80Gb limit on the folder, started the backup with 75Gb of data present. The backup took 20Gb of extra space, so at the end of the backup there was 95Gb of data in the managed folder.

    I just started another new backup, thinking that the limit had to be breeched at the start of the backup, but no, that has done nothing either. The "80Gb" folder is now sitting at 100Gb.

    I don't know if this has anything to do with my problems, but when I made the backup task I selected the Backup Zone, and did not specify a filename (you are unable to as the selection area is greyed out). However, whenever I go into the schedule to edit it, the file location is displayed as if it is a standard folder, not as if it were in the managed location. I correct it each time I edit the task, not sure how it is for other people.
     
  15. Luminous

    Luminous Registered Member

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    Here is the log from the last run:

    It is "checking" to see if my rules are being breached, but for some reason it does not detect that it needs to do something o_O

    1 Information 23/03/2007 23:53:30 The "NAS - Daily System backup" operation started
    2 Information 23/03/2007 23:53:31 Analyzing partition 0-0...
    3 Information 23/03/2007 23:53:32 Analyzing partition C:...
    4 Information 23/03/2007 23:53:32 Analyzing partition D:...
    5 Warning! 23/03/2007 23:53:32 Priority changed to Low priority
    6 Information 23/03/2007 23:53:32 Analyzing partition C:...
    7 Information 23/03/2007 23:53:37 Create Incremental Backup ArchiveFrom: System (C:)To file: "\\ls-gld6c\Andy\WIP System Images\"Compression: NormalDescription: "Translucent daily backup"
    8 Information 23/03/2007 23:53:38 Pending operation 128 started: "Saving partition structure"
    9 Information 23/03/2007 23:53:38 Pending operation 131 started: "Creating partition image"
    10 Information 23/03/2007 23:53:38 Locking partition C:...
    11 Information 23/03/2007 23:56:33 Check for 'number of backups' rule violation is started. Set number: 100
    12 Information 23/03/2007 23:56:33 No violation is detected. The following rule was checked: by backup count
    13 Information 23/03/2007 23:56:33 Check for the 'backup location quota' rule violation is started. Set quota: 85,899,345,920
    14 Information 23/03/2007 23:56:40 No violation is detected. The following rule was checked: by location quota
    15 Information 23/03/2007 23:56:42 Operation has succeeded.
     
  16. SenorBumbles

    SenorBumbles Registered Member

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    I tried getting rid of the password too and got the same results as above. The log also claims that the rule was checked and no violation was detected.
     
  17. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    I don't know what the root problem is but you have have success if you delete and then recreate the managed directory and the task without the password. Still would like to hear for Acronis on this, in any event.
     
  18. como

    como Registered Member

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    When Trueimage changed its name to Trueimage Home the new install made folders called TrueimageHome without deleting the old Trueimage folders in C:\Program Files\Acronis (I can't remember about al the other locations TI installs into) this caused some users problems and we had to manually delete the old TI folders. Its time Acronis update and removal worked properly.

    Thanks for the detailed fix it should help those who can’t get Backup Locations to work properly.
     
  19. Luminous

    Luminous Registered Member

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    Its still not working for me. I deleted the task, and the backup location. Then made a new backup location, and new task.

    I also do not have any old True Image folders under acronis in program files.

    Am at a loss why this feature does not work, and I don't have much more time to spend on it. Going to have to look for an alternative piece of software I think :(
     
  20. mustang

    mustang Developer

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    To get a fresh start after problems arise with managing backup locations you need to delete some registry entries. First, you should delete your scheduled tasks and backup locations as you already did. Second, open regedit and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Acronis\Formatik\Place Browser\Favorite Places. Delete all subfolders. Also delete all entries in the right hand pane if any exist. This is the way the registry looks after a fresh install of TI10 on a system that has never seen TI10 before.

    All this will do is give you a fresh start. It does not fix the problem of the program being poorly written with respect to managing backup locations.
     
  21. Luminous

    Luminous Registered Member

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    OK, thanks for those suggestions. I am going to make one more attempt at this, before the program is uninstalled and shelved :mad:

    1) Uninstall Disk Director 10
    2) Uninstall TI 10
    3) Reboot
    4) Kill the registry items you mentioned, and in addition search and kill anything with acronis written on it
    5a) Reboot
    5b) Reinstall TI 10
    6) Make a managed backup location
    7) Make a task

    :cool: Get angry with a poorly written piece of software when it fails again/ feel lucky that I managed to get a poorly made piece of kit to work (with your help).
     
    Last edited: Mar 25, 2007
  22. Luminous

    Luminous Registered Member

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    OK, its not worked, but I have learned something.

    The backup to the remote NAS drive failed as before.
    A new task that did a backup locally did work.

    There was one noticeable difference. AFTER you have made your scheduled task, open it up again to edit its settings. When you are looking through those settings you will get to a page that shows the backup location. The task that fails on the NAS drive shows a directory tree directly to the location, and not the managed area (no matter how many times you point it to the managed area and reopen).

    The task that works does show that it is using the managed area.

    The only question left is why, and how to fix it...
     
  23. Luminous

    Luminous Registered Member

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    OK, more testing.

    2 new managed backup locations were created

    1) On my local HDD
    2) On my NAS drive

    All tasks were edited to point to the local drive, and worked

    All task were then pointed to the NAS drive, and failed.

    Acronis has an error in the software that fails to remember a backup location when it is pointing to a remote computer. I have no suggestions to fix the issue, other than drop kicking someone at Acronis to fix it for us :blink:
     
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