Log on failure after Hibernation

May I assume you take the pc out of hibernate and in the x seconds it takes windows to become live acronis starts the backup and notlog in.

if this is what is occuring - MIGHT the problem be avoided by creating a file as a preprocessing task which does a sleep for "x" seconds. before then starting the backup?

' c:\sleep.vbs
'
' Purpose: sleep/wait the number of milli seconds indicated by the first param.
' so an input param of 20000 would be a 20 seconds delay
' default (noparam) wait is 1000 (1 sec)
' sample usage for a 60 sec delay:
' cscript /nologo sleep.vbs 60000
if WScript.Arguments.Count >= 1 then
WScript.Sleep WScript.Arguments.Item(0)
else
WScript.Sleep 1000
end if

have a dos batch file call sleep...
c:\my_sleep.bat
cscript /nologo c:\sleep.vbs 60000

have an acronis preprocssing task in your backup to run c:\my_sleep.bat
before attempting the backup itself.

I'm sure some the .bat/.vbs call can be simplified into one file but this is what I can post in the short time I have. let us know if this works or if the logon failure is before even the prepocesssing task. which if so that's needs to be a bug fix request.

Many thanks for your suggestion. I understand the principle and think it worth a try to delay Acronis for a short while before running. I have created and used batch files but have never created a vbs file. What is a vbs file and how do I make one? I feel this may be outside my technical ability.

As a trial I created a text file with the information you supplied and saved that as a file with a .vbs extension but when I tested it in the Acronis preprocessing section, all I got was a blank dos box with no activity. Obviously I don't know how to make the vbs file.

I would like to try this, but I have to say that this is not what the program should do. Hibernation is a normal part of users' routines and Acronis should be able to handle it without technical work arounds.

Actually you probably did everything right. both the .bat file and the .vbs files are simple text files you create with notepad (you can not use msword, wordpad, msworks or word processing program that lets you choose fonts and color) just a pure text editor such as notepad.

All pre/post processing programs when run from with acronis have virtually no user/screen interaction feedback. Acronis assumes that all batch jobs stand on their own and perform no user feedback and require no user interaction. As such acronis sets up their run environment so that none is possible. So when you run a DOS batch script you get a black runtime window with nothing in it. You seen nothing even if the job tries to echo text to the sysout.
When the dos program finishes the window closes.

To make things easy for you I am attaching a zip file to this post.
Please extract both files onto your C:\ drive.

I coded the two files similar but slightly differently that my original post.
When you double click "countdown" you will get some visual feedback/countdown to zero.
The visual countdown is only seen when run interactively, the display is surpressed when run as an acronis pretask.

Please run the countdown.bat interactively once.
The point is so you get a "feel" for how long the script runs.
As well as proving that it runs and finishes.

Now go ahead and put the call to this bat file in your acronis pretask.
click the "test" button. it should come back "success" in about 45 seconds or so.
Now that you know it pretask works.
try your batch job once interactively.
now that you know that the backup itself works.
try your backup again scheduled for the future but then have your laptop in hibernate during that moment in time.
When you turn laptop back on and acronis runs the missed scheduled backup.
It should begin by calling our countdown. the 45 second delay we hope resolves any issues about windows not yet ready for the acronis processes to "log in"/authenticate into windows.

This whole countdown concept is a guess on our part as to what is the issue.
Your test will prove that theory (or not). If the theory proves correct not only will you have a work around to a technical issue but we can then go to acronis with an exact description the bug and hints as to what needs to be done to fix it.

For the purposes of this testing I would make the backup something that runs in seconds versus hours (such as backing up a specific file verus the entire hard drive).

I agree with you that as a user you shouldn't be expected to write a technical workaround.
However we are making a guess as to what is the problem.
If our guess works then you have a solution to a bug.
Its much more likely that acronis can resolve a bug quickly if it is both reproduceable and well defined/understood.

Let us know if the countdown resolves the problem (or not).

Your reply goes a long way to restoring my faith in forums; thank you for taking such time and trouble to help. Before your last answer I did some searching and came to the conclusion that my vbs file and batch file were OK and now that I have the new ones I can confirm that they work exactly as you said in your excellent clear description. The test produces a successful answer and when the backup is run, there is the 45 second delay while the user command is carried out.

But the task still fails with the message "Logon failure: user account restriction". Clicking on Start makes it run normally.

This testing was more than worthwhile for my part, after all, I now know what a vbs file is and will not shy clear of them in future and I know how to view and edit them. Clearly Acronis has a fault in so much as a task will not run when my computer comes out of Hibernation. So it's over to Acronis to start finding a cure for it. How do I tell Acronis this? On the web site I get led a merry dance round in circles that always end up at the forum. Where is the method to report a problem?

Again I must thank you for such positive and clear help.

As for how to report I bug I dont know never tried before.
However I have two well documented bugs of my own and need to report them.
I will probably take the time to figure out how to make the report later this weekend.

As for your problem I have one more idea. The following is a work around and not a solution
but it may be enough to suite your needs.

Currently you click hibernate and let the PC be off during the time of a desired backup. You then expect the backup to launch when you start up.

What if you reversed the process. --- Let the backup itself put the PC into hibernate.

So today you click a hibernate icon.
Instead you now would click a backup icon and then walk away.
The backup would occur and then put your PC into hibernate status.

On my laptop I acually have such an icon (though its a shutdown not a hibernate).

To acheive this result in your environment you would:
a) Alter your job to have a POST process task that puts your PC into hibernate status.
b) Alter you job and UN-check the box that says to run missed backup tasks.
c) Schedule your backup for 4am.
d) Manually Create an icon on your desktop to run this backup.

Now with the above in place you have several backup options available to you.
option a)
Your done working and wish shutdown (hibernate) so
instead of clicking hibernate you instead click the desktop icon
you created and you then walk away.
The backup will occur and the PC will go into hibernate status.

option b)
you have gone to bed without shutting down your laptop.
Without you doing anything, at 4am a backup will occur and then
the pc will go into hibernate.
FYI: When considering a time for your nightly automatic backup to occur.
Consider your setting for automatic windows updates.
It would be a mistake to have configured automatic microsoft updates
to only download/install at 3am but configure your backups
to occur at 2am and then hibernate the PC. If do this
your pc will always be off at 3am. In this situation you aught
to reconfigure or reschedule either the update or the backup
so they work with each other not against each other.

As for me and my laptop.
I use chain2gen see this post.
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/5940

The PDF in the zip file has detailed instructions and examples.
One example is for a laptop and describes the above process with chain2gen
this is what I do.

The chain2gen code does has an option for 5 minute countdown to shutdown.
Sounds like you would do the same thing but call a hibernate routine not a shutdown routine.

As for how to do a hibernate from a command line either of the following would do the trick:
- http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897541.aspx
- http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptstopper.asp

I really do appreciate the trouble you are taking to assist in this. In all probablity the work arounds you suggest will work, to a degree. However they are work arounds and I have a dislike of having to jump through hoops to make a program do what it should.

I use Hibernate when I leave my computer for more than half an hour or so because I get a quicker start and anything I have been working on is there ready for me. It is never left on overnight. Once a week or so I do a reboot to give me a clean slate every so often, but more often than not I have had to reboot after an update so the weekly reboot is done anyway.

There is a check box that should enable or disable "if missed, run at startup". If the time is overdue then it is reasonable for the task to run. But what happens? Acronis is broken and I get this logon error. I am getting harder in my attitude that Acronis MUST fix their software to work properly. Changing settings and so on is legitimate tuning, but I am turning away from becoming a software engineer - after all that's what I paid Acronis for.

ok. your call. enjoy.

If you are running on TI on W7, you might also try changing the Acronis services to delayed start.

I don't think I've noticed this problem on build 5055 though.

That was such an attractive suggestion, I tried it straight away. Unfortunately Acronis still will not play. If the time gap has elapsed while my computer was in Hibernation, the task will not start because of log on failure.

Where are you support team? This need fixing back in the workshop.

Without intending to work on your issue I may have just stumbled upon a work-around solution for you.
Last night I to put my laptop in sleepmode.
It also happened that I had two backups scheduled in a row one at 2:01am the other at 2:02am.

This morning when I turned the laptop back on, the 1st job got errored out with the issue you mentioned however the 2nd job auto-submitted and finished with success.

If my results are typical then your work-around solution is to define two backup jobs, a "throwaway" and the real mccoy.

The "throwaway" job can be anything - some file level backup of a single small file - since we really don't care about this job make sure its somethiing that runs super quick. I would not bother to have success/failure of this job send email as we don't care about it.

schedule the throw-away 1 minute ahead of your real backup job.
For this "real" backup job, have it send email to you upon failure this way you "know" when your backups fail.

Hope this helps.

Hello all,

This issue appears to be the common one, so It's really important for us to investigate it and forward to our QA team for testing. We will help you with the fix to this hibernation issue.

oracledba, thank you very much for the workaround with vbs script and batch file, it's very useful!

This issue is related to the scheduler malfunction, updating it may help to resolve the issue. Please follow the instructions:

1. Download Acronis Scheduler, which is a special utility to update the scheduler service;
2. Extract the downloaded file and run install.bat. The utility will automatically update the service;
3. Reboot the machine;
4. Recreate the scheduled tasks and check whether the issue persists

If it does, please collect the following information on the PC's with this issue for it's deeper investigation:

1. Acronis Information:

- Download the file from http://download.acronis.com/support/AcronisInfo.exe;
- Run the downloaded file
- Send us the files created.
The gathered information will be put in adv_report.zip in the same folder, where the AcronisInfo was saved.
Running AcronisInfo may take up to 5 minutes.

2. Scheduler Report:

- Download either the EXE file or ZIP archive;

- Open command prompt (Start -> Run -> cmd);

- Run the following command in the folder the file was saved to:
schedmgr get report > schedreport.txt

3. Scheduler Log:

- Use the same EXE or ZIP files you downloaded previously

- Open command prompt (Start -> Run -> cmd);

- Run schedmgr.exe

- Enable flags using the following command:
set logflags support

- Reproduce the problem and provide the log file

The log file is named schedul2.log and placed to the \Program Files\Common Files\Acronis\Schedule2 folder. It is recommended to turn off logging after troubleshooting with the following command: set logflags 0

The list of available commands is below:

• set logflags -1 (enable all flags)
• set logflags 0 (disable all flags)
• set lf_XXX on|off (enable/disable the XXX flag)

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 issue appears and the link to this thread. Then please provide me with the case number you receive from our system, so I can pick it up and speed up the process. We will do our best to investigate the problem and provide you with a solution.

Additionally to this, you are welcome to ask me any other questions concerning Acronis, and I will assist you further.

Regards,

Alexander
I did as you suggest and this issue is now with Acronis support. They were unable to solve the problem initially and have now escalated it to Tier 2.