settings lost after backup

I'm having a problem with a scheduled overnight backup. When I log in the next day a bunch of settings are lost. Desktop background, default browser and my picasa library are all gone/reset. This is a huge hassle. Anyone seen this, have suggestions?

Thanks

 

Hello epw,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We are sorry for delayed response.

Could you please clarify, what version and build of Acronis True Image are you using? What version of Windows are you using? How is the backup task set up? What happens if you disable the task?

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

 

There is a common thread running through all these posts. It is disappointing that Acronis is not proactive and seem to be in denial. Surely by now Acronis has a huge growing list of bugs. Will we still be talking about this in another month, 6 months or even a year? Or will there be a fix, any time soon?

 

Have you checked in Windows Explorer to see if Windows has created a temporary profile for you, this as far as I know applies only to XP machines.

You can tell, as if you look under Documents and Settings, you will see your user name twice - once with either an index suffix - my_user00001 or possibly as my_user.temp as well as my_user which would be your normal log on. You can also check this by hitting Windows+Pause/Break button and then under Advanced check Profiles.

Colin

 

The problem turned out to be that the user was incorrectly set up with a roaming profile. Once I changed her profile back to a (normal) local profile the backup has been working perfectly.

This was happening with Windows XP (SP3) and the latest Acronis True Image Home (2009). Thanks for the excellent pointer Colin, I ended up solving this on my own but that was a great suggestion.

 

Following Bootup, I selected my ID on the Windows User Selection screen to log-in. The computer loaded a Desktop with my ID that is the "beginning" fresh desktop. My custom wallpaper, and all my folders and shortcuts were missing from the desktop. The My Documents icon brought me to a "fresh" My Documents folder with nothing in it.

I rebooted into safe mode and discovered that ATIH 2009 had been running before I logged in on the Windows User screen. There was a small ATIH 2009 file in the back up directory.

Then I rebooted into the Administrator user and looked at entries in the ATIH 2009 log file. The backup indeed had been running before I logged in. It terminated abnormally when I shut down after the problematic log-in.

Note: I disconnected the USB cable to the external hard drive I used for backup to ensure that the prior backups weren't corrupted. (I wasn't sure what was going on.)

I then rebooted normally, logged in to my User ID, and the desktop, shortcuts, files, and My Documents appeared as they had in the past.

When ATIH 2009 does a backup, does it create a Temp File for My Documents? I found such an entry in the Temp folder when I right-clicked on my the My Documents entry and checked Properties for my My Documents folder. I surmise that Temp folder entry for "My Documents" is created during the backup for Shadowing of disk changes.

Is this Backup before Log-On behavior new to ATIH 2009? This did not occur with prior versions of ATIH.

Should there be a way to prevent this Backup before Login behavior from occurring? If not, how about a message saying "ATIH" is running and Wait for Logging on?

If this Fresh User Login behavior occurs again, what should I do?

Thanks!

 

Whilst this might be a TI problem, I also wonder if it is something to do with SP3 or another patch from Microsoft.

My problems started after I had applied a number of patches and upgraded to build 9646, bit difficult to say which is the culprit as TI runs on a daily basis, but the broken profile problem is random. Also the random profile problem is a known XP 'feature', plenty of chatter about it around the web.

Colin

 

Colin,
Thanks for the quick reply.
My surmise is that the profiles directory was locked for backup by ATIH 2009 at just the instant I logged in. Windows XP couldn't find the profile then created a new one. When I logged off, and then restarted the machine (after disconnecting the backup drive), the profiles directory was unlocked (as it usually is), and the login proceeded normally. Now all is back to normal.

Just to be sure, I will now wait for the computer to stop its pre-login activities (I can hear the disk accesses) before I login on the days that ATIH backups are running. This could be a day after the regularly scheduled backup day and time because I have set ATIH 2009 to run the next time the system is started if it misses its regularly scheduled time.

I found lots of posts on lost and missing profiles, and I'll share the best below for those who are reading this posting and may have lost their profile and can't get it back after attempting to shut down and log in normally.

First thing to try is to reboot and see if it works.

Second thing to try is the System Restore capability, which can usually be found in Start - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools. No application data is lost, and the registry is restored to a previous state.

If these two things don't work, then:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/811151

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555473

http://downloads.techrepublic.com.com/abstract.aspx?docid=383102

If the Default User Profile is corrupted, then the following may be helpful:

http://forums.techarena.in/windows-xp-support/963769.htm

Thanks again.

"widbcc"

 

Hello,

whats about the idea to create an additional windows service account (e.g. name = acronis) an start scheduled jobs only with this account, so that there is no interaction with the normal user account ?

Sometimes I get the same problems with TIH 2009 build #9615. In situations, when TIH 2009 starts scheduled and my account is not logged in. PST-Files ist deleted after that and nessesary registry settings for some other software (e.g. Palm Desktop) is lost.

An what is about the german version of TIH 2009 build #9707?
When will this be downloadable?

"clemm"

 

Hello Clemm,
Thanks for the idea of using another account. That's what I did, and it seems to be working fine with the latest release.

And I'm sorry to hear you had the same problem with the older release. I often wonder if it is my computer and its unique configuration.

Our computers are like snowflakes - each one is different.

I hope an Acronis employee reads your post so they can tell you about the German version.