Link target was not backed up.
I am getting these error messages after file backups, with no indication as to what files or links are being affected.
In my email report, there is just the line:
8 True Image 1/18/2016 11:30:38 PM Link target was not backed up.
In the actual log file, there is a bit more detail:
<event id="8" level="3" module="4" code="17" time="1453177838" message="Link target was not backed up." line_tag="0xCE542E14DA203BBF" >
<error>AREABAC/OyDaFC5UzkxpbmsgdGFyZ2V0IHdhcyBub3QgYmFja2VkIHVwLgBQYXRoAFdDOi9Vc2Vycy9Sb24vTXVzaWMAJG1vZHVsZQBOAAAAAAAAAAAA</error>
How can I figure out what this refers to, and what files might or might not be being affected.
Thanks.
The backup and associated verification tasks complete successfully.
Don't know what you mean by Version. This is the 2016 forum and I am using TI 2016 Build 6027 and my account screen says it is up to date.
Even though the backup seems to be successful, I am concerned that I do not know what links are referred to by the logged message, so I could not tell if I am missing a file that would need to be referenced directly, rather than via the link.
Hello Ron,
This messages appears if the bakup source contains symbolic links. This is expected behaviour designed to warn about backup result. If you want to backup the target files/folders of the symbolic link, include them into the backup source. Warning can be ignored then. In order to avoid warnings, exclude the file from the warning message from backup source.
Thank you,
Thank you for your response, but it does not answer my question.
You write: "If you want to backup the target files/folders of the symbolic link, include them into the backup source. "
But how can I determine the files/folders (target) of the symbolic link? As I wrote, this is not specified in the logs that I have examined.
If you have files/folders on your machine which have been relocated via symbolic link that action would have had to have been done by a user of the machine.
Have you moved for example your user data folders, (Music, Videos, Documents, Downloads, etd.) to another location on your machine by right clicking on them, selecting Properties, then Location and changing the default location? This is the aciton which creates symbolic links.
At the time of creation, I did a clean install of Windows 10. Prior to creating any user accounts, I used sysprep and audit mode to ensure that all user folders would be permanently relocated to my D: drive. As far as I can tell, this did not create any symbolic links.
I manually created a single symbolic link. However, that link is on my C: drive, which is NOT being backed up at all. (The backup is only for certain files/folders on my D: drive.
I could, of course, examine each and every directory entry to ascertain if it is "normal" or a link. But it seems to me that Acronis should be providing, someplace, a more informative message as to which links are not being backed up!
Hi Ron,
Symbolic links are not actually files - they will never get backed up and just ignored so they are not logged (as far as I know). In your backup scheme, you can look up the default exclusions as well just to be sure that something has not been added (for instance Google Appdata which is excluded by default).
Any customizations that are symbolic links, will just get excluded, but won't be logged. If the specific folder is actually on the D: drive, it should be getting backed up (you're not using Nonstop backup are you - libraries get excluded and this is a bit qwerky).
To be sure though, you take a full image of the partition or disk and push the image to another drive. Then use a third party tool like Treesize Free, Foldersize Free, or JDiskReport Free to help identify which files/folders are different in your original location compared to the recovered location.
Following your post, I executed a Dir \AL command in my d:\users\ron\documents folder. I found No symbolic links, but there are three junctions that point to non-existent folders on the C: drive
d:\Users\Ron\Documents>dir /AL
Volume in drive D is New Volume
Volume Serial Number is F2E2-5239
Directory of d:\Users\Ron\Documents
02/14/2016 02:15 PM <JUNCTION> My Music [C:\Users\Ron\Music]
02/14/2016 02:15 PM <JUNCTION> My Pictures [C:\Users\Ron\Pictures]
02/14/2016 02:15 PM <JUNCTION> My Videos [C:\Users\Ron\Videos]
There are other Junctions, but none of them are in folders that are being backed up.
I will try to exclude those files from the next file backup, and see what happens. I would still think Acronis could provide a better message than what it does, whether or not this turns out to be the issue.
Interesting. I am unable to exclude those folders from my file level backup.
I tried two methods:
- I went to the options/exclusions tab and tried to add it. Although I could type in the folder path, it would not appear in the list.
- I went to the "Change Source" dialog and attempted to navigate to that folder (in the d:\users\ron\documents) folder. However, those particular folders do not appear in the list of files. (They are present in Windows File Explorer; they are not accessible (I get an access denied dialog box, with a "Location is not available" title).
Assuming these three junctions are responsible, I guess I will have to live with the error message, until I figure out what is going on, and whether these can be deleted.
What OS are you using? Win7 is a bit goofy when it comes to "Mydocuments" folder because it uses it's own jucntions/aliases to be backward compatible with previous version. If you use explorer to navigate to your profile name, inside you'll see "My Documents" as a folder and "My Documents" as a shortcut. Clicking on the folder, should take you to your documents, but you will get access denied on the shortcut. Also, if Windows Explorer, click in the navigation bar and you'll notice that "My Documents" is really just "Documents". The same goes for "My Music" etc, as they are really just "Music", etc.
I have not experienced your issue with Acronis when I was using Windows 7, but it has caused issues with other applications like robocopy (default app in Windows), which woudl recursively copy those folders over and over and over based on the shortcut names. It's a bit hard to explain, but I think when you look at Windows explorer and see the full path doesn't really have "my" in it, it makes a bit more sense.
I have W10 x64 and Explorer looks different. There is only a single My Documents, and it is an inaccessible shortcut (actually a Junction) which points to D:\users\ron\documents. And then, of course there is the Documents folder which is at that location. There is no, accessible, My Documents folder.
Ok, just wanted to be sure. My Windows 10 machine is the same as yours, but was wondering if you were on Win 7 because of ther structure of all of the "My" folders within the user profile.
I think what the error message says is basically a generic message meaning that the target folder/file is not at the location specified.
The best way to look at this is that a junction point or symbolic link both accomplish basically the same thing. They simply make it appear to Windows that data resides at a location on the same drive as the OS drive but reality is that the data is located somewhere else.
True Image on the other hand determines that the folder/file that is to be included in the backup is not where it is suppose to be and gives up the error indicated with the generic message of symbolic link. As Ekatrina explained the message can be ignored it is simply telling you that the data location is not where it is suppose to be on the OS disk.
Those 3 junction points you mention are what you moved using sysprep to relocate the User folders to D: drive. thus the reason for the error message. As long as you know where this data is and know it is not being backed up then no big deal.
You are unable to exclude these locations from the backup for the same reasons that the error message appears, that being the location of the folders is incorrect.
I do not think you will have any issues here but I cannot guarantee it. I have had several machines in the past and still do have two actually that have the Users folders moved to another drive. I have seen the error message that you indicate when backup is/was run on those machines. I have never been concerned with this as I know why the message appears and I make backups of the drive that holds the Users folders seperately anyways.
What I have not done is a restore on those machines but I do not foresee a problem with doing so. What I have done is Clone these drives to new drives and the outcome is perfect. I see no reason why a restore would not end in the same result.
I suspect that you moved the Users folders because your OS drive is an SSD and you are wishing to lessen write wear on the drive. I can tell you that it does work but given the way in which todays SSD controllers operate I do not see as much need to do this as was true back when the 2nd generation of SSD drives where just becoming available and this was a popular technigue to avoid memory cell wear.
What you write makes sense, but it sure seems as if Acronis could have provided an error message that, at the very least, included the name of either the link or the target. Surely it must have garnered this information in the course of processing.
And the reason for creating my system with the User files not on the C drive has to do with the size of the C drive. When I built this machine, SSD's were a lot pricier than they are now. So it is only a 128 GB drive. It contains the minimum recommended by MS, along with a few other files/folders that are there for speed purposes or operational necessity.
So far as wear and tear, that was not a concern of mine. I think the chance of drive failure was and is greater on a mechanical HDD, than an SSD, at least from when I started to use an SSD. If I were to build a new machine today, I'd probably just use a 1TB SSD and have everything there.
Understood, the error messages generated by the application are not as a general rule specific as to cause in most cases I have found. I can say the same thing about most error messages from applications as a whole including Windows.
If you have the resources (a spare drive) to restore a backup image of your OS drive to and then replace your current OS drive with the restored one and test boot it this should tell you if things worked correctly or not as you can determine if in fact your user folders are still accessible or not. I think they will be.
Any such recovery should be done using the user created Recovery Media which can be generated using the Media Builder tool in the application. I would not attempt this from the installed Windows app and strongly recommend against it.
Additionally, prior to such a restore attempt I strongly recommend that you remove the current OS drive from the machine and replace it with the spare drive you will be recovering to. I have found Windows 10 a bit finicky when it comes to multiple drives in one machine so best not to change what it espects to find upon boot.