Backup stalls

Thanks for starting this thread. I've been having these same problems off and on and I couldn't figure it out until today. I was using the built-in windows backup program in the interum. Anyway, I'm using ATI-Home v11. I used v9 without any problems for quite a while. Upgraded to v10 but then upgraded to v11 shortly afterwards. My last successful backup (monthly backup) was on 02-04-2008 and it was using compression. My daily backup started to fail soon afterwards but it was using high or max compression. Now that I turned compression off, it seems to work fine - but my backups are large. I'm backing up about 600~750 GB total so any compression sure does save the space. I deleted my original jobs and settings thinking they were corrupt. Heck of a time trying to figure out how to get out of the hung up situation but it is easy (but annoying) now.

I just thought I would put in my $0.02 worth of knowledge.

I should include this info too....
1. Running WinXP Pro SP2, ATI-Home v11.0.8053
2. Partial backup or selected data folders with any compression selected other than NONE. I don't think the disc / partition image stalls w/ compression.
3. No compression seems to be the workaround but that is pretty useless since I can use Windows Backup w/ compression and get a MUCH smaller backup file.

 

All I know is this:

That full backup I was doing yesterday kept stalling, so I experimented, seeing what combination of folders kept in and kept out of that backup would allow the backup to complete. Finally, I found two folders which I eliminated from the full backup, and it did complete. Why this is I cannot say. As far as I know, none of the files in either of the left out folders are corrupt. After the full backup, I did an incremental backup of those remaining two folders, and that backup completed as well. OK, it worked, but not the way I wanted it too. Why those two particular folders would not allow a full backup to complete, but did allow an incremental backup to complete leaves me scratching my head.

 

Were they just standard data folders/files or system folders/files? I too experimented with all sorts of compression and other settings and a variety of folders and files. I thought there was a corrupt folder somewhere that was causing it to hang up. I even did a disk check on all drives.

 

Data backup of document folders from My Documents. No system or application files or folders.

 

I'm having the same issues on a new Dell running XP. True Image hangs from time to time each month. I do a nightly incremental backup of various folders and a weekly full backup of the same.

Going through the thread, a few weeks ago Acronis posted that they had fixed the problem and that the updates were forthcoming. Well, where are they?

In the meantime, just deal with it? For goodness sakes... I do backups of my data because it is VERY important to me. I purchased backup software because of the importance of my data. Now, Acronis is telling us to wait for a fix that is, supposedly already coded

Hello Acronis!!! This is your customers wanting the software to work like its advertised to work. We did not purchase it to become a bunch of beta testers for buggy software!

 

Acronis! hurry! my trial is running out and I am not purchasing this software when I can't backup to dvds using compression. Mine stalls at 0%

 

Hi Folks,

i have also this problem that TI V 11 Build 8.064 hangs during a backup of my data harddisk!
tried to install the "new" SnapAPI.337_s_e.msi does not help to solve the problem!

deinstall TI ans reinstall also did not solve the problem.

since i bought this software i had to contact support 4 times for some problems with it!
support is very endeavored to help but , i wasted more time for "repair" than the software brings back!!!

if this does not stop i'll ask for "money back" because this program ist not very useful for me!!!

 

This same problem started for me about a week or so ago too. (Win XP, latest Acronis) Funny thing is, it always stalls in exactly the same place, which are some static files that haven't changed in years. I also can't get "cancel" to cancel, and have to manually quit the service from task manager.

My first thought was some sort of file corruption, so I've ran all of the file and disk fixing utilities, and even made new copies of all the files.

I will turn off compression as suggested, but I am very disappointed with the Acronis line, as I've had nothing but problems with it since I first started down this road years ago. C'mon guys, quit adding new and uneeded marketing features, and get a core system that is stable and actually qorks. This is "peace of mind" software that doesn't provide any.

If anyone knows a good alternative, I'm all ears.

 

Same problem here. My Specs:

• Dell XPS 420 running Vista Premium
• Trend Micro Internet Security (AV/Firewall etc)

ATI 11 does a great job cloning disks, but every time I've tried to perform a backup of my "users" folder it stalls (hangs) at about 32%. I have not tried to turn compression off. I'll do that tonight. Last night I was able to do an image of the partition (which only contains the "users" folder) and an hour later an incremental image.

Acronis really needs to fix this problem. I switched from NTI's programs because of the stellar reputation of ATI. In addition to this problem, I just read yesterday on this forum that ATI may not be able to image properly my "c" partition which contains my OS and program files but has junction pointers to the "users" partition.

I've never tried to return software before. If it's defective like this, can it be done?

UPDATE: Like others I am able to backup when I turn off compression. At normal or high compression it stalls. With no compression it works. Obviously this is a suboptimal solution. Let's get with it Acronis.

 

Hi Folks,

got some email from acronis suppport.

had to try to run chkdsk on all drives but there where no bad sectors ore something else to find!
also got a hint that a new version is out:
"Build 8078" could be downloadet at: https://www.acronis.de/homecomputing/my/updates/

deinstalled the old one and tried new version -> SAME PROBLEM!!!!!

maybe i should reinstall "cobian backup" i used bevore, this runs very more stable!!

 

I'm beyond frustrated with this software. It is buggy beyond belief and Acronis doesn't seem at all interested in fixing it in an expedient fashion.

For a backup solution... it has failed me completely!

 

I totally agree. I'm at my wits end. First this problem, then I discovery that I can't schedule a backup to run when the computer is in sleep mode even with Vista's task manager. Then the email after backup won't work.

The shame of it is that the underlying functionality (at least imaging and cloning) are quite good.

 

Thats right, but for filebackup it is unusable at this time.
I found another solution for that until acronis does his job well

 

I've tried TI 11.0.8078 (German), and the backup still stalls when doing a file backup (My Data) of certain folders. It's kind of strange. So far I've noticed the following:

• The backup stalls when backing up files from my local HD to my external USB HD, but it works OK when backing up to a different partition my local HD.
• When backing up a certain set of folders, the backup always stalls in the same subfolder (let's call it folder1). But when I choose a different set of folders (also containing folder1), the backup either stalls at a completely different folder or works out OK (depending on the set of folders I select for backup).
  

Does anyone know whether Acronis has been able to reproduce the stalling backup problem? If they can't reproduce it, they can't fix it.

I could try to build a virtual machine that reproduces the problem, and upload that to Acronis, if that would help.

 

i have the "stall" problem also on 2 built in SATA Harddisks!
both connected to onboard SATA controller.

so the problem is not connected to USB harddisk!

my problem also is not every time on the same directory. when i define different backup folders the "stall point" is also on a different place...

 

So what are you using as backup target? Are you doing a file backup from one built-in HD to the other one?

Maybe you can check sometime whether using a network folder as backup destination fixes the stall problem - it worked on my machine.

 

Yes, this machine is my "Home Server" running XP Pro and has 4 huge harddisk in!
every 1st of the month i copy 1 Backup to an external harddisk...

good idea!
but normally THIS "Home Server" makes my network drives so i cant really test this hint ;-)
but i'll try with another machine just for testing if i find some time ....

 

Hello everyone,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We were able to reproduce the problem, but it is still unclear what causes it to happen. If you are experiencing the same problem (stalling in the middle of a process when trying to back up files compressed with Windows compression), could you please collect some information to assist us with investigating the problem on a wider configurations selection?

Please create Windows System Information as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

Please download the latest version of Acronis drivers and install it with enabled logging. Then reproduce the issue and collect the log file without closing any application windows (including the error message windows if there are any). The log file will be created at C:\ . The name of the log file will be snapapi [date-time].log

Then submit a request to out Support Team with a note that the information relates to test case #1322014. Attach all the collected files and information to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with a solution.

hhonisch, the virtual machine would help greatly. If you're still willing to do that, please mention that in your request.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

 

Further information:

I've transferred my laptop harddisk into a virtual machine using VMWare, but unfortunately, the stalling backup doesn't happen inside the VM.

BTW, I can only reproduce the problem on my DELL laptop. I've got two other PCs running also Win XP (all updates), and the "My Data" backup works fine there.

On my DELL laptop, I've just done a clean install of Windows XP SP2 (German) on an empty partition of my harddrive, using an original Microsoft Windows XP CR-ROM.
I've installed TI 11.0.8078 German on that clean system, without even enabling Windows updates, without installing any additional drivers or any other software. And the "My Data" backup stalls anyway (when backup up from the built-in S-ATA HD to my external USB drive).
As I said in earlier posts, the stall only seems to occur when I do a "My Data" backup from the build-in SATA HD to an external USB drive.

It works fine when I backup to a network folder, or to a different partition on the same S-ATA harddisk instead. It also works fine when I backup from one USB drive to another.

I'll let you know when I find out more.

 

Now that's interesting: When I disable "support for multi-core CPUs" in the BIOS (my laptop has a Core 2 Duo T7200), the backup works.

What also works is to set the CPU affinity of "schedul2.exe" to CPU 0.
You can either change the CPU affinity temporarily (Windows task manager only gives me "Access denied", but Process Explorer works fine), or you can use "imagecfg.exe" from Microsoft to set the CPU affinity permanently.

Apparently, the processes "TrueImageHomeNotify.exe" and "TrueImageHomeService.exe" inherit the CPU affinity settings from schedul2.exe. When I check their CPU affinity, it's always identical to schedul2.exe

 

OK, the workaround with setting the CPU affinity definitely works on my machine. It turns out that it's sufficient to apply the CPU affinity setting only to TrueImageHomeService.exe.

If you want to test the workaround for yourself, do the following:
1. You need imagecfg.exe, which is a tool from Microsoft. It's normally part of some resource kit, but you can also download it from here. Or just google for "imagecfg.exe download".
2. Make a backup of TrueImageHomeService.exe (Folder: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Acronis\TrueImageHome)
3. Open a command prompt, cd to the folder of TrueImageHomeService.exe, and run:

imagecfg.exe -u TrueImageHomeService.exe​

This should modify the executable in a way that tells Windows XP to executeTrueImageHomeService.exe in uni-processor mode, i.e. on one CPU only.

To undo the changes, restore the backup of TrueImageHomeService.exe that you made in step 2.

Another option that worked for me was to use Process Explorer from Microsoft to set the CPU affinity of schedul2.exe (the Acronis scheduler service) to one CPU only, for example CPU 1 (using Windows taskmanager didn't work, "Access denied"). TrueImageHomeService.exe then inherits the CPU affinity settings from schedul2.exe when it's launched.
If you set the CPU affinity like this, you have to repeat the steps after each reboot, but it's a nice and easy way to test the workaround.


If anyone can find the time to test one of those workarounds, please leave some feedback here.

 

I installed the new drivers, as I'm also having the same stall problem and wanted to provide additional data.
The drivers installed with logging on. I then proceeded to reproduce the problem, which I had no problem in doing. But there was no log on c: to send to support.
I thought maybe I had not checked the right checkbox, so I uninstalled the drivers and then installed again, this time being extra careful to select Enable Logging.
Ran through the scenario again and still no log...
I would like to help and provide my log, but generating a log does not seem to want to work for me.
Running Windows Vista 64 bit Business, all latest updates from MS installed, no SP1.
Please let me know if I can help at all, and most importantly let us all know when a build with the fix for this problem will be made available to us paying customers.

Thanks a lot

 

i tried it on my machine and it worked for my first test!

but on my geman machine the file was found in:

c:\Programme\Gemeinsame Dateien\Acronis\TrueImageHome\TrueImageHomeService.exe

i activated all my backup jobs again and will see if it workes longer than one time ...

so "paying customers" found another bug in acronis "banana software" ;-)
Thanks hhonisch for this hint!!

 

Same problem here - I couldn't get the log working either, and I've tested it on two different machines (both running Windows XP SP2 + all updates).

 

I tried this way but without success. The backup stalls at the same point.