Introducing AX64 Time Machine - hybrid imaging/snapshot software

This software like many others got of to a galloping start with an enthusiastic developer and a great interactive relationship with the developer and supporters. With the momentum achieved during this period it seemed like all interested parties would all push on together to achieve the shared goals. (cite Sandboxie development)
Confidence is broken and trust goes when fracture occurs and communication breaks down.
I believe that an essential part of the development in this type of software in early development is that a constant, fluid, meaningful and non mysterious communication is maintained. If users find bugs that effect their real system and there is no useful, meaningful dialogue and they are met with awkward pauses, and all left to guessing and conjecture then the development loses one of it essentially important elements, a transparent and meaningful developer client relationship. When that relationship is damaged, confidence is almost impossible to repair. Even if the software goes on to be the 'cutting edge marvel' that we all hoped for it still has damaged it's ability to achieve 'classic' status. Somebody somewhere will always have a bad story, a doubt and people talk. To be successful, security software not only needs a secure structure codewise, providing a safe, stable, linear, useage experience for paid users but should also provide a useful, meaningful and secure structure and infrastructure outside of that code. This is known in the business as 'Support'
If the users get left out of the equation in security software development then that software is very unlikely to succeed.

 

No doubt. But a comment to that effect or a once a month update would certainly help the confidence of those who have paid money and those who want to in the near future. Creating doubt and being mysterious is not a good business plan for anyone. If there's too much going on to make real progress--just say so. People understand there are other things in life than a program. If there are problems in the software that aren't being resolved as they would like we all get that as well, but being told nothing is a very bad idea and will leave a bad taste in the support base (as said in the previous post). Looking more and more like Comodo TM. Sadly there are too many similarities to deny it and the increasing gaps in communication point in that direction.

 

Pete--I couldn't say it any better myself. Thank you!

I am a paid "subscriber" to AX64 and essentially a "lurker" in this thread for the past year or so. I absolutely love this software. It gives me a lot of reassurance and comfort knowing that I have it on my PC. I am, at times, dumbfounded by the lack of patience that some seem to have on this forum/thread. Like you, I choose to give the developers the benefit of the doubt and will wait patiently for the next beta or update.

(I do need to say that I still use Win 7-64 bit. If I was using Win 8 or 8.1, I might feel a little bit different. I still would like to think, though, that I'd give the developers the benefit of the doubt.)

 

Seems Isso started a brilliant idea but some legal issues/ patents were involved that deprived him of his hard work. Now the new owner took over the half prepared meal but seems he will never be able to complete it and so will be going to get no revenue out of it but Is so did loose his work and users will loose a brilliant product that they were supposed to get some day.

 

Yeah, the posts used to come almost as fast as you can talk. Now it's one a day or two. Nothing to share I guess.

 

Hi Pete,

I can only speak to AX64 (v1) and the fact of the matter is that 18 months after its intro it still has major reliability issues, regardless of the underlying reasons. On the other hand SD has been (and still is) a very reliable app. - or am I missing your point?

Anyhow that's my 2-cents worth.

Cruise

 

I'm all for giving the benefit of the doubt, but it would be much easier and reasonable to do when the devs are communicating and around to do so. I'm perfectly fine with being told "we are having problems X, T and R and will take another quarter to resolve;" but at least say something. Delays are completely understandable--a lack of communication is not. In any relationship failure to communicate is asking for trouble or indicative of it already being present.

 

Okay, you guys want some excitement? How about an issue I just noticed with dead v1?

On a lark I opened up the AXTM screen and saw that my hourly hadn't been hourly for 14 hours. This is the 2nd time Merging has gotten stuck on 0.0%, the first time with 3 files to merge, now 5 files to merge. And this is a new chain started a few days ago.

Any input? http://screencast.com/t/tHAE1xEat

 

Just decided to turn off my external hard drive, from which and to which AXTM was trying to merge files. Then started a manual backup. Only took 49 seconds.

What might stop AXTM from being able to merge? Corrupt this or that? Start a new chain...again? Revert to 1.3.whatever.was.stable?

Win 7 64-bit system.

 

I have found this occurs when the free space on the destination drive gets below some mysterious level. When this happens I delete an old AX64 chain or 2 and start a new chain. This has fixed the problem every time.

 

Hi Pete,

Because SD is so reliable I haven't had much need to email Tony for support. The few times that I did ask a question via email he replied within 48 hours (except for the 8-month period in which he disappeared from the scene for reasons unknown).

But this is really about AX64, AXTM, or whatever the current name of the product is. During the first year Isso's support was terrific, nevertheless AX64 was not reliable on my Win7 SP1 x64 system, neither as a snapshot or image-backup program (I only wish it were)! Perhaps it's a hardware configuration thing and perhaps I'll give v2 a go when it comes out of beta, but as it now stands SD is my reliable 'snapshot' app and Drive Snapshot is my trustworthy image-backup app. Neither one has ever failed to do its job for me!

Cruise

 

Thanks, bGood. On my 2TB backup drive, 1.28TB are used, 548GB still available. My initial backup in this new chain is around 50GB and the other 9 backups total less than 5GB.

Do you recall if you had this much free space when it happened?

 

In my case the backup drive was much smaller (about 100 gig),,,,,but the drive being protected was quite small as well.

I would suggest you try freeing up some space and then see what happens. If the problem arises again you can do the same and eventually you will get an idea of what the ratio is,,,,if indeed this is the source of the problem.

PS: you say that for your current chain the INITIAL backup is 50 gigs but that 9 other chains total less than 5 gigs?? What has changed to account for the huge difference in backup chain sizes?

 

In the new chain, the first backup is 50 GB. Then the hourly subsequent ones have always been smaller on my system. Isn't that normal? Here's an image of Windows Explorer on that drive. http://screencast.com/t/B2OESeaGl

 

I did last year until The Shadow discovered that SD's shadow mode messes up AX64's sector-tracking. After becoming aware of that I removed SD, nevertheless hot restores hardly ever ran to completion. I tried 3 or 4 builds but to no avail. So a couple of months ago I removed AX64 and reinstalled SD.

 

A chain is the initial backup plus all subsequent backups/snapshots. A second chain is started when you change the name of the current one and AX64 begins a new one beginning with a new baseline and then current snaps. Do you have multiple chains or just the one?

Regardless you may need more room on the destination drive, thats what I found was the cause of my problem and thats why I mentioned it.

 

Does just having SD installed screw up AX64, or does it only screw up AX64 if you run SD?

 

Hello twl845..My experience has been SD only screws it up if you run it. SD simply sitting there installed has no negative impact on AX64.

 

Thanks for confirming that for me. I want to keep SD installed.

 

Pete, I'm running the current version of SD (.519). As for trying v2, perhaps after it matures.

Cruise