Constant freezes since updating to ATI 2017
Clones require about two minutes to physically swap drives.
That's only after the cloned drive already exists, as you're not including the time needed to perform the clone. I could say the same two minutes to swap a drive that was duplicated via a backup and restore, a much safer and more flexible system than cloning.
As for fixing issues in ATI, we agree. None of us MVPs is defending leaving defects in the product. We don't work for Acronis, we are users.
It has been my experience that the clone process takes far less time than doing a full back up and then a full restore.
I can't see a backup/restore matching the speed of the cloning process. Time to swap drives is incidental.
Continue with your backups, I'll stay with my clones.
To each their own. That's one of the nice things about having the option to do either.
Acronis has a KB article that helps people choose an option
1540: Difference between Backup and Disk Clone
MVPs are in these forums a lot and will mostly recommend a backup and recovery because of the issues we've seen others experience with cloning without backups. If you don't have a safety net, the time cloning doesn't work, which hopefully won't be the case, but could... you might then wish a backup was available.
Am I the only one who is not completely confused about the nature of the problem Peter is having. There is discussion about docking stations that I am having difficulty tieing back to Peter's problem. All I can work out is the Peter was able to clone using ATI 2016 from June 2016 until recently, when it stopped working.
There are two factors that could bring about this result:
- Peter installed a new build of ATI 2016 after which cloning stopped working. The most recent build of ATI 2016 - the most recent build 6851 was released on 26 October 2016.
- that something changed in Peter's PC which gave rise to cloning not working. This could be a hardware change, or an OS update. It could also be due to a driver update (I had this happen on one of my Win 10 Pro systesm. Windows 10 updates (particularly major updates) can mess things up badly. On two of my systems the so-called Annerversary update messed up some critical settings so I had to do a fresh install of Windows.
- or a combination of the above.
Ian
PS Like the other MVPs I am not an employee of Acronis. Just someone trying to help users when problems arise. To be of help, I need all the facts so that I can make an informed assessment of what is happening.
I believe Peter desires to perform clone operations from within the Windows installed application and is at root of the problems encountered. All of the MVP responders here agree that doing so is flawed and not consistant with good practice. The main reason for the problem with cloning from within the Windows installed application is the need to reboot the machine into another environment (Linux) to complete the requested clone operation. Until such time as the clone function in the Windows product becomes a function tied to the use of VSS within Windows itself to perform the clone operation the issues we all know to well with cloning in Windows will remain.
Pathfinder, welcome to these user forums.
Did you read Bruno's update in post #5 where he concluded that the issues he was seeing came from a mix of upgrading over previous versions plus being caused by the Acronis Mobile backup service running.
I would recommend trying a clean install of ATIH 2017, especially if you had previously upgraded to 2016 from one or more earlier versions.
You can save your current backup tasks by saving the C:\ProgramData\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Scripts folder contents before taking the next steps.
Uninstall the 2017 version normally via the Control Panel, then download the Acronis Cleanup Tool (link below in my signature).
Run the Cleanup Tool as Administrator then restart the computer to complete the cleanup action.
Install 2017 again (as Administrator) - download a new copy if needed from your Acronis Account. Note: if this was an upgrade license then you will need two license keys to enter, one for 2017 and one for 2016 (or other earlier version).
Restore the task Scripts files if saved above before running ATIH 2017. You will still need to check each task and reset your schedules for these.
Steve, I forgot to thank you for the welcome, and the suggestions. I do thank you now for those.
I finally had a chance to go through this entire process on Monday, including the reboot, and with a "clean" install of ATI 2017, I started a backup since I hadn't had one since mid-January. My machine locked up again. I rebooted and logged into windows and just left the machine alone - it locked up. I rebooted a third time and disabled the ATI processes - no lockup.
So, now what?
A couple of personal thoughts.
ATI 2017 is not ready for primetime. Any software that requires a complete purge of pre-existing version(s), including manually editing the registry, in order to ensure a successful install, is lacking something.
I'm not running anything exotic - Windows 10 on a 2-year old AMD 8-core processor with 32G of memory. My system also runs the Norton Security package. Windows, Norton, Firefox and Outlook are the only apps I leave running permanently - between reboots.
Nor am I some noob to computers, I spent 20+ years in software development, including most of the last decade in software quality, QA and testing, hence my first comment. If this ATI 2017 release had gone through my QA team, I would have failed it. The fact that it apparently CAN be successfully installed on some systems does not mean that it is ready for deployment to all systems. I consider the problems I and others have encountered to be critical defects - now failures.
I am ready to write-off the $20 I spent for the upgrade and revert to 2016 - assuming I even can do that at this point.
Pathfinder, I would recommend opening a Support Case with Acronis for this freeze issue and let them investigate it or at least guide you to capture all relevant information before you revert back to the 2016 version of the product. An Acronis System Report may hold most of the information they would need.
ATI 2017 is not ready for primetime. Any software that requires a complete purge of pre-existing version(s), including manually editing the registry, in order to ensure a successful install, is lacking something.
You are running to problems not experienced by many users. For many people those steps would not be required. (They weren't for me.) ATI 2017 is obviously lacking something to make it run correctly in your environment. Maybe those steps would have changed your environment enough to let it run.
I'm not running anything exotic - Windows 10 on a 2-year old AMD 8-core processor with 32G of memory. My system also runs the Norton Security package. Windows, Norton, Firefox and Outlook are the only apps I leave running permanently - between reboots.
You may not be running anything exotic, but there is certainly something that makes your environment different from those running Acronis with no problem - something that was not included in the Acronis tests.
Nor am I some noob to computers, I spent 20+ years in software development, including most of the last decade in software quality, QA and testing, hence my first comment. If this ATI 2017 release had gone through my QA team, I would have failed it.
If your testing environment included whatever is that is causing the freezes, then yes, ATI 2017 would have failed your QA testing. But there have been lots of reports of freezes on Win10 and not all reporting those have Acronis products. In your case, ATI 2017 plus something else (maybe multiple somethings) is triggering this. Finding the cause will probably not be easy. Finding a circumvention mayb be easier.
The fact that it apparently CAN be successfully installed on some systems does not mean that it is ready for deployment to all systems. I consider the problems I and others have encountered to be critical defects - now failures.
No software is ever ready deployment to all systems. There is always some untested combination or hardware and software (including stuff in the registry left over from old deleted software) that will cause problems for any non-trivial software. It's unfortunate and frustrating when you happen to have that untested combination.
In your 20+ years in software development you certainly must have run into situations where a user found a bug. And you hopefully appreciated the value of such a user being willing to work with you to fix the problem. Well, now you are that user. Maybe you can work with Acronis to solve this.
I am ready to write-off the $20 I spent for the upgrade and revert to 2016 - assuming I even can do that at this point.
Assuming that the problem is eventually going to be understood and fixed, there is evenutally going to be a fixed ATI 2017 for you to use. You really aren't out $20; you are just delayed in benefitting from it.
Pathfinder, not sure which build your are running: 5554, 5554 with the 5555 hotfix, or 6116 (NG). There are all sorts of weird things happening to some users of 6116.
I would definitely recommend reporting your experiece through the in-app feedback (make sure your have ticked included system information at the bottom of the page).
Ian
My original problem - ATI locks up my computer - is NOT resolved. What I got - in response to my customer dis-satisfaction survey - was an email directing me to a KB article, with instructions to follow the instructions in the KB article:
"Please refer the below article and share the logs for further investigation:
https://kb.acronis.com/content/46980
- Please share a video illustrating the issue."
The KB article directed me to MANUALLY edit the Windows Registry in a couple of places, reboot, run ATI and let it lock up my system yet again, reboot, and send Acronis some log files via an FTP link. One of the steps even promised a BSOD! Presumably, they would then look into the problem, although there is no statement to that effect.
WTF? I bought this "product" as a consumer-grade product for automated backups, which conflicts somewhat with the whole manual editing of the Registry thing! Although I have extensive background in IT, I now view PCs as an appliance which I want to work without having to rewire the guts of the systems.
Clearly, Acronis still thinks - in spite of their own marketing - that everyone using ATI is a sysadmin who is OK with jumping through hoops to get some basic information as to why their product locks up peoples' computers.
So now I get to research a replacement, as I am done with ATI.
Pathfinder, have you upgraded to the latest build 8029 for ATIH 2017 (if you have a perpetual or standard subscription license version) as this is meant to include a number of fixes for known problems.
See post: 128766: !!Acronis True Image 2017 Update 2 for Perpetual and Standard subscription!! for more information.
If you have ATIH 2017 New Generation, build 6116, then we look to be waiting a little longer for the next update to be released to us to bring all versions back into line with each other.
The only other suggestion is to write a PM to Gaidar, General Manager Acronis True Image and enlist his engagement with this issue.
Pathfinder, have you upgraded to the latest build 8029 for ATIH 2017 (if you have a perpetual or standard subscription license version) as this is meant to include a number of fixes for known problems.
See post: 128766: !!Acronis True Image 2017 Update 2 for Perpetual and Standard subscription!! for more information.
If you have ATIH 2017 New Generation, build 6116, then we look to be waiting a little longer for the next update to be released to us to bring all versions back into line with each other.
The only other suggestion is to write a PM to Gaidar, General Manager Acronis True Image and enlist his engagement with this issue.
Steve, thanks for the suggestions. My version is 20.0.5554, installed 2/7/2017. As of this moment, I have suspended all readily-obvious ATI processes in Win10 to keep my machine from locking, as it would lock even when I was not doing a backup. So I doubt that any automatic update occured.
I will try to download the most current build and see what happens. Time is running out as I have not had a backup run since before 2/7 and I am getting nervous.
In the meantime, don't hesitate to take a full, offline backup with your rescue media. It can be created from the Acronis application as an .iso, burned straight to disc, or created as a USB flash drive. Alternatively, you can download the recovery media as a prebuilt .iso from your products section after you log into your account. Offline backups boot to a temporary portable OS while your main disk is idle (inactive and not booted to Windows) and are a great way to backup.
OK, last update. I restarted ATI and had it look for an update, which it found. I downloaded and installed the update, set up a new backup of my C: drive, and walked away from the computer with my fingers crossed.
Lo and behold, it worked! So I created a new backup for my D: drive, walked away, and it too worked, again without locking up the PC. Created a third, ditto.
So, lockup problem solved. Oddly, the new release also resolved the "incremental" backups doing a full backup each time, so win-win.
Thanks all for the suggestions. Hopefully, the released quality of the ATI builds will be such that we will not need to go through a similar process again.
Pathfinder, glad to hear your positive feedback - we all hope that there will be no more similar problems with any future upgrades.