Backup Foul Up--A Continuing Saga

I stopped using TI Version 11, because it simply would not work, and reverted to TI Home 10, Build 4942.

["...would not work" refers to TI 11 taking two and one-half hours to try to work its way through a simple `backup and delete an existing file' procedure. At that point, I abandoned my lengthy exchanges with Acronis technical support and reverted to TI 10 in the apparently unwarranted hope that TI 10 would actually work properly.]

Now TI 10 won't work properly either:

I have a task set to do a full and differential backup of selected data files each day at 1500.

Starting yesterday, the log shows that there is a corrupted file; the result is that, instead of there being a total of eleven files in the backup location, there are now thirteen.

That number is due to TI being unable to delete a file from the previous set. That set consists of the full backup plus differentials numbered 2 through 9. That set is now accompanied by a new set, a full backup plus differentials numbered two through four.

I have run verification against the backup location, which reports no errors.

The error log gives a tag for the supposedly corrupt file, a tag that is completely meaningless to me.

So, how do I figure out if I really do have a corrupt file? If I am able to identify the file and delete it, will TI then resume the correct procedure of removing one of the old set of files each day when a new one (in the second set) is created?

Is there any hope that I might some day have a backup program that works correctly? I threw away Ghost, when I found that it could not keep track of an external USB disk where I had it storing backups. I then started using TI 10, moved to 11, moved back to 10, and I still don't have a working backup program. This is on a Windows XP Home, SP2, system, with an internal hard disk and a simple external USB disk; no RAID, no Vista, nothing unusual (other than the owner...), and all I have is problems instead of usable backup sets.

(I wonder what I will find tomorrow morning: My full-disk full/differential backup set started a new set at 0300 today. Will it manage to start deleting files from the first set tomorrow, or will it, too, foul up?)

 

While I appreciate your reply, that is precisely what I did when I reverted from TI 11 to TI 10.

There is simply no excuse that I can imagine for this to not work.

How many times do I have to start over?

Let me add to this that I just took another look at my full-disk backup files, where I found that TI 10, having apparently finished doing a full set that was started 30 November, created a full backup to start a new set on 9 December.

That new set consists of nothing but the new full backup. TI 10 then started yet another new set on 10 December, so now I have three full backups in that folder. This is completely, utterly, and totally absurd.

TI just does NOT work properly, not for me. I think the evidence I have presented, when combined with the lengthy exchange of support emails about TI 11, verifies that there are horrible things amiss with TI Home.

 

Acronis just does not like me, sigh.

What now?

Oh, the forum won't let me edit my own message, to correct an error on my part, where I said that TI 10 had started two new backup sets in two days. I was reading the wrong column in the file manager: What I thought was a new set started on 9 December was actually an earlier spurious set that I had failed to remove and which was, for some unknown reason, modified on that date.

 

Hello John Liebson,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please download the latest version of Acronis drivers and install it with disabled logging.

If the issue persists, please collect some information to let us investigate it thoroughly:

- Reinstall Acronis drivers with enabled logging;
- 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

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

Please also collect the application log of the operation:
- run the program;
- select Show log on the toolbar or from the Tools menu;
- select the corresponding log;
- click "Save the log entry to file" (the diskette icon).

Please also collect acronis_backup_place.cfg file from the folder where Acronis Backup Location is created.

Then submit a request for technical support. 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.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

 

To my disgust, but not to my surprise, yes, Acronis fouled up yet again, so that I still have not managed to get a usable set of full and differential backups. (My data backups seem to work okay.)

Following the instructions provided by Acronis, earlier today I removed the Acronis drivers and then reinstalled them with logging enabled.

A few minutes ago, my data backup ran.

To my disgust, but not to my surprise, yes, there is no log file for that backup; that means, I'm sure, that when the full backup/differential runs early tomorrow morning, there will be no log for that, either.

This means, to my disgust, but not to my surprise, that I will be unable to submit to Acronis all the information they have asked me to put together and send to them.

So, to my disgust, but not to my surprise, I continue to have no faith in Acronis, which seems quite unable to provide me with a backup system that actually works.

There seems to be little reason to have a logging system installed that does not log anything. Perhaps Acronis can provide me with yet another of its lengthy series of suggestions of how to get True Image to work? Maybe this time, Acronis will also actually provide me with something useful: I've spent an incredible amount of time over the past few months in the attempt to get all of Acronis' ideas to actually provide me with something that will do correct full/differential backups, all to no avail.

 

The first thing I would suspect is a USB-related incompatibility. Do you have more than one partition on your internal drive? If so, then for testing purposes I suggest you try backing up to the other partition using exactly the same methodology.

 

Certainly possible that there is a USB-related problem, but Acronis is unable to find any, despite all the testing I have done for them.

The TI internal log reports that the task cannot delete files because "Archive is invalid or its type is unsupported", an error message that is of no use whatsoever: Which archive is invalid, why is it invalid, how can an archive created by TI be unsupported, and why does running the TI validation process report no problems?

In short, I have simply have no confidence in the program. What is odd is that TI 10 was working in the past, but TI 11 was a total, complete, and utter disaster. Following instructions provided by Acronis Tech Support, I removed 11 and reinstalled TI 10, and now I have a program that won't work properly.

So, following the instructions provided above in this thread, I installed Acronis' drivers with logging enabled, and logging does not work. This does not exactly give me a feeling that my on-going difficulties with TI are going to be solved.

All I am asking for is a backup program that works, on a computer that has no unusual setups, such as RAID, an external USB drive from some unknown company, etc.

I am actually experiencing many, many fewer problems with the nightly releases of what will eventually become Firefox 3 than I am with TI. TI 10 ought to be a stable, working program by this time, but for me it is nothing but a pre-alpha release.

Even the Acrnois forum does not obey its own options, as I've had it set for "Instant email notification" for some time now, and yet, twelve hours later, I've not been notified that "dantzt" had replied to my latest post in this thread.

 

Continuing the continuing saga: Yesterday, I took a look at the Windows Event Viewer, which--unlike TI 10--actually identified the file that was causing the problem.

TI just said that there was a bad file, which was obviously totally meaningless.

Event Viewer identified the file by its actual file name, so I moved that file out of the TI backup location. Starting at 0300 this morning, TI 10 proceeded to create the nightly differential backup and remove the three extra files that, due to the presence of the corrupt file, it could not remove.

Interesting that not only did TI fail to identify the file, it also failed to send me the e-mail that the task has set up to be sent when there is a failure.

So, TI fails to backup correctly, fails to notify me when it fails, fails to identify the file in any meaningful manner, and fails to correct the problem.

That is five "Fs" on TI's report card....

 

Sounds like ATI doesn't handle corrupt files well. It's possible that the corruption is being caused by a disk error. How is the rest of your drive? I suggest making a fresh image and a good backup and then running chkdsk /f and chkdsk /r.

PS: Would you mind easing up on the blame game? You will get a lot more help here if you just stick to the problem.

 

No, I will not ease up on the blame game--nor would you had you been privy to the incredibly long exchange of messages, things for me to do, files and screen shots to send to Acronis over a few months concerning TI 11. The blame is properly imputed to Acronis.

As for disk checking, that has been done, more than once, without a single error of any sort found.

In short, I am simply expressing that which needs to be expressed, and shall continue to so do, with my complaints based on factual information that I have amassed, garnered, compiled, and submitted.

(You should have been party to the extremely long exchange between Novell and myself, on CompuServe, at the time that Novell was the owner of Word Perfect. I had found a completely fatal bug in the first version of Word Perfect for Windows, a flaw that continually destroyed a file for a fire service training manual I was writing.

No one, not Novell, nor the sysops of the Word Perfect forum, nor the users of that forum would pay any attention to me despite my proofs of the fatal error. Rather than stopping expressing blame, I continued to do so until, at last, Novell acknowledge the error, fixed the problem, paid for me to travel to Salt Lake City to do a videotape for them, and I became an assistant sysop on the CompuServe Word Perfect forum.

I tend to take on projects when I have at least a modicum of facts to support my suppositions.)