Backup stalls

My problem is fixed and it had nothing to do with Acronis software.
The external drive was connected through firewire (which SHOULD work fine) but the transfer rates were abysmal. I did a simple large file copy test and timed how long it took to transfer 1GB of data. I swapped in a USB2.0 drive and the backup took less than 2 hours (the other backup took 3 or 4 DAYS!).
I'm not sure if it is the firewire or a failed drive causing a problem but all is well now. Maybe it was a combination of factors and doing all of the Acronis fixes helped as well.

 

Re: Here is the stall solution ...

Thanks, Haeckli, for your suggestion!

I am running Windows XP on a Dual Core and applied exactly the changes through Regedit that you suggested. When I opened TI.11 after the change and began to edit my old backup tasks, I was stopped at the "Credentials" page and was told that my "login information is not correct." I had never entered login information when running TI previously--it had filled in the user name automatically--and I had never used a password. As a result, I am now unable to schedule any tasks.

Would this issue arise as a result of the change to the registry? Before reversing the registry change, I wondered if anyone else had had this problem (??).

Thanks for your help.

--Dhrona

 

Re: Here is the stall solution ...

Hi dhrona,

the proposed change definitely does not affect any login information. But I was able to simulate your problem by completely disabling the Acronis Scheduler2 Service. Therefore I would assume that there is a misspelling in the ImagePath key and therefore the service cannot start on a system boot.

Please go to the services screen and check if the Acronis Scheduler2 Service is currently running. If it is not (that's what I would expect) please verify the ImagePath in the registry. Again as in my previous post: Be careful to include all the quotes (") and spaces as highlighted!!!

Found a mistake? OK.
Found no mistake: What exactely is the content of ImagePath?

Good luck
Haeckli

 

Thanks, Haeckli, for your prompt reply.

As you guessed, the Acronis Scheduler2 Service was not running after I changed the ImagePath registry, but I had indeed typed the correct, new registry entry--all the correct quotes and spaces. I then reread your instructions carefully and discovered that I had not extracted RunFirst simply to the C drive. In other words, I had extracted RunFirst within a folder on C, rather than simply to C:\. As a result, the Acronis Scheduler2 Service could not start.

For others interested in this fix, please note Haeckli’s original instructions:

• Open the ZIP-file and extract RunFirst.Exe to C:\

Notice that RunFirst should be extracted simply to C:\. I have now run two separate backups (on two different drives) successfully--no stalls!!

Thank you so much for all your help.

--Dhrona

 

After referring Acronis support to this thread and suggesting they do something I received the following enlightening reply:

"We are really sorry for the inconvenience.

Could you please apply the sector-by-sector approach option when selecting partitions to be backed up in the Crate(sic) Backup Wizard; this is needed for the issue localization purposes?

We are looking forward to hearing back from you at your earliest convenience."

I'm so happy now.

 

Good news coming ...

Hi all,

received an email from (Germany's) Acronis support today. They announce that the stall-problem is finally being solved in a new build which will be released shortly.

Unfortunately no specific time for the release was given.

But anyhow: let's watch out who's first to get it...

Greetz
Haeckli

 

Well, we heard a new build was going to be released some time in March -- silly me; I assumed they meant March 2008.

 

I had problems with Vista Business 64 bit, submitted logs to Acronis, never got an answer that fixed or helped the problem.

Last week I installed Vista SP1 and now I can do backups with compression at any level, everything works fine. I never changed any of the previously failing Acronis setup. It just started to work.

Now, I think this is a fluke and that something in the service pack tweaked something that allowed the backup to work. I am pretty sure that sometime in the near future, when MS releases another update Acronis will stop working again. But in the meantime, I'm able to backup with compression.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone else with this problem on Vista still has the stalling backup problem after applying SP1.

... Peter

 

SP1 has definitely improved Vista. I had tried some of the RC versions and would get intermittent lockups when browsing with IE and with FFox. Since I installed SP1 the system has been free of lockups.

 

I am having this problem on Windows Vista Ultimate with SP1 and ATI 11 (8053). It happens backing up to a network attached storage drive over gigabit ethernet, and it also happens on an eSATA drive connected directly to the system. Both methods fail/stall between 45%-50%.

Also, it only happens when I've checked boxes to backup select sets of data, it does not happen when I select an entire drive to backup. I have tried to turn file compression off, but that does not solve the problem.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Nord

 

Thanks to Hacckli, my Data Backup "stalls" are also history! RunFirst to limit execution environment to 1 CPU fixed the problem (at least on first few tries of a failing job). It's amazing how much can be accomplished by someone dedicated to finding the answer!

I've been a TI user for quite a while, and count on it to never fail (at least on restoring!). Now, my confidence is shaken due to lack of support from Acronis (very unusual, in my experience!).

At least they should acknowledge the fix by Hacckli and incorporate it somehow into an immediate release to keep us long-term users of TI in the fold.

- Ev Merritt

 

Evmerritt,

Thanks for the possible fix. I'm trying the 'RunFirst' method, but now instead of my backup stalling, TI just crashes around the same point. This happens even with compression off.

Could it be that RunFirst is not compatible with Windows Vista? Did this workaround work for anyone else running Vista?

Thanks.
Nord

Event Log...

Faulting application TrueImageHomeService.exe, version 11.0.0.6007, time stamp 0x47272df8, faulting module TrueImageHomeService.exe, version 11.0.0.6007, time stamp 0x47272df8, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x0042d5e2, process id 0xabc, application start time 0x01c8d663e9d221ff.

Faulting application TrueImage.exe, version 11.0.0.8053, time stamp 0x47282d03, faulting module unknown, version 0.0.0.0, time stamp 0x00000000, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x4d8b0002, process id 0xb5c, application start time 0x01c8d663cc23fcff.

 

Hi, when I successfully used Haeckli's fix with RunFirst, I was using Win XP Professional, an Intel DG33TL motherboard, an Intel E6600 Quad Core CPU, and was backing up data from a RAID 1 array.

TI 11.0 had looped repeatably at an early point in the process, but with the "fix" it ran perfectly (at least it completed and I "validated" the backup produced with TI).

I wonder if the problem Acronis is having is that it's not really a "bug" in their S/W, but some anomaly in the compiler (C?) they are using in that the object code produced by the compiler does not handle multi-core CPU's correctly in all cases.

Even if it is the compiler, that does not excuse Acronis from not releasing a work-around or fix based on Hacckli's fix.

Ev Merritt