Acronis 2020 Nonstop Reliability
I have been an Acronis Customer since 2011. I recently upgraded to Acronis TrueImage Home 2020 Build 20770. This is the 2nd release for the 2020 Version.
I am wondering if issues I am experiencing are unique to me or if this is an inherent software problem with this fresh release.
Background:
I have worked for several hours with generous and kind Acronis technical support. Despite their efforts, I am unable to reliably use the Acronis Nonstop features in a reliable fashion. My Acronis afcdpsrv.log contains messages such as:
- Warning: Has Read Error Read error or data content is corrupted
- Error occurred while reading the file path: \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy504\
- The operation is not supported
- Error occurred while reading the file
- Operation has been canceled
Sometimes, after running for 3-4 hours, the complete backup fails. I delete the backup (from within Acronis) and create a new backup, only to find different issues.
Before setting up Acronis I have:
- Performed the MS antivirus full scan of the entire system
- Executed ChkDsk scan for each hard drive.
- Allocated an entire, newly formatted Hardrive with sufficient capacity for Nonstop.
- Allocated 20% space for system recovery for every hard drive (perhaps relating to volume snapshots)
After Setting up Acronis Nonstop and initiating the initial full backup:
1. Nonstop sits at the 2 minutes remaining mark for long periods.
2. After attempting to add a folder to a completed (but much smaller) backup source, error message appears stating Acronis is unable to access the storage location.
Questions
I am wondering if anyone in the Acronis 2020 community has successfully installed and is using Acronis 2020 nonstop to reliably backup a large source data (in excess of 1.2 TB) to a backup drive. Here are my specific questions:
1. Has anyone successfully created a complete non-stop files backup in excess of 1.2TB? For that matter, even a smaller amount of data!
2. Has anyone been able change the configuration of a Nonstop backup, after an initial nonstop backup has been initially and successfully created?
3. Has anyone been able to reliably run Nonstop backup with Microsoft Onedrive?
4. With MS OneDrive and Office 365, has anyone been able to successfully observe that Nonstop is actually detecting and backing up files (e.g. Excel, word) that have changed?
I have been told there were some known Nonstop issues (that I experienced with 2019) with that were supposedly addressed in the Acronis 2020 edition. Those issues are gone, but new ones keep coming up leading me to feel I am testing rather than using the software!
Perhaps it is indeed me, because I realized my computer system is somewhat complex because my source data is in excess of 1.2TB, and also because I use OneDrive.
If anyone has reliable success, or if you are also experiencing issues, kindly comment here.
Like I mentioned, Acronis TrueImageHome has served me well for many years. My hope is that Acronis can and will fix the issues.
PS - One last note: Anyone notice that when an error does appear on the Acronis desktop you are directed to view a website for additional information, but there is rarely if ever any additional information to view?
Thanks!
PS - One last note: Anyone notice that when an error does appear on the Acronis desktop you are directed to view a website for additional information, but there is rarely if ever any additional information to view?
This happens far too often.
I successfully ran nonstop backup on ATI 2019, and again without reliability issues on both beta builds for ATI 2020. When I migrated to ATI 2020 the backup became corrupted (see discussion in this thread).
Ian
Steve, Ian, thank you for the insight and guidance. I will review the articles, address the VSS / Snapshot and start with a fresh backup, less than 600gb. I will report back my progress here.
Again, thank you for answers to my specific questions. I very much appreciate your responses.
Gary
Some Good news. I followed Steve Smith's suggestions and so far, Nonstop has been running without error for about 60 hours days, and includes sleeping and waking the computer. The major difference was setting up a smaller backup set, less than 500gb.
On the other hand, while other modified files (including Onedrive files) are getting added to the Nonstop backup, my one modified Excel file is not being backed up. This is my test case and the one I am closely monitoring. In this case, it was last saved by me with a date modified of 20190904 22:01. Nonstop detected the change at 22:03 but failed to backup the file.
I notice the following log file warning in the afcdpsrv.log file. Notice the hexadecimal file name does not exist. The actual name is much different (i.e. "WF-201908280-Investment-Dashboard.xlsm"). Perhaps Steve or someone else can offer further insight or more steps to diagnose this feature. In particular, why is there a Hexadecimal name rather than showing the actual file name?
04-09-2019 22:03:23: [FileTracker] ResolveFileState select name from current: \??\Volume{91744245-8a73-47a2-9531-bd7797cdb4c1}\Users\GaryR\Cloud\OneDrive\Documents\My Excel\Projects\Stocks\Dashboard\57BDB600
04-09-2019 22:03:23: [FileTracker] EnsureValidFileState, warning: \Users\GaryR\Cloud\OneDrive\Documents\My Excel\Projects\Stocks\Dashboard\57BDB600 does not exist, original name \??\Volume{91744245-8a73-47a2-9531-bd7797cdb4c1}\Users\GaryR\Cloud\OneDrive\Documents\My Excel\Projects\Stocks\Dashboard\57BDB600
04-09-2019 22:03:23: [FileTracker] ResolveFileStreamsInfo stream name: ''
04-09-2019 22:03:23: tid=0x00003584>[StreamEnumerator] GetChanges()
04-09-2019 22:03:23: [PrintStream] old relative object name: '', relative object name: '\Users\GaryR\Cloud\OneDrive\Documents\My Excel\Projects\Stocks\Dashboard\57BDB600'
04-09-2019 22:03:23: [PrintStream] object state: deleted, object type: 0
Gary, good to read that NSB has been working for you.
Reference the Excel file, the log data posted shows that this is being stored in a OneDrive location, which may suggest it is perhaps being locked by OneDrive, or perhaps is being used in a Files on Demand scenario.
As per my earlier update, there are known issues with OneDrive and Files on Demand, and I do not know if these were resolved for ATI 2020. I do not use these features myself so is not an area where I would have encountered this.
To add to Steve's note.
OneDrive's Files on Demand, means that by default, the files are not actually on the local computer and only live in the cloud. They show up in your One Drive folder (as if they are there, but they really aren't). The icons next to them give away whether or not they are actually synced to the PC or not (green checkmark).
Also, keep in mind that Microsoft Office files are not committed to disk automatically either. When they are open and in use, they are usually being committed to memory and not directly to disk. It is only when you press the save button, or the auto-save kicks in (if you have it set to auto-save at a set period of time), will it be committed to the local hard drive where it can be backed up. And again, this assumes the file is actually synced locally to the computer and not just an "on-demand" file that is still really just in the cloud.
Helpful and all true comments from Bobbo_3C0X1. In my case all files (and their parent folder) have the green circle with check mark.
It seems unusual that after saving and existing Excel, the Excel file is not backed up by Acronis.
Furthermore, the log file detects the file change, however the real filename is being replace by a hexadecimal number. Perhaps someone can shed some light on why the 935D0100 (or any other hexadecimal number) is referenced rather than the actual file name (which is the case for other files that are successfully backed up by nonstop).
current:
\??\Volume{91744245-8a73-47a2-9531-bd7797cdb4c1}\Users\GaryR\Cloud\OneDrive\Documents\My Excel\Projects\Stocks\Dashboard\935D0100
As an added fallback, you should also used the oddly named Cloud Services to backup you outlook folder. The files are directly backup from the Microsoft server to the Acronis server. As far as I can work out it does not work for OneDrive for business. You do this by adding new backup (you can do so for multiple Microsoft Accounts):
Gary,
Any chance the original file name is using a special character?
I don't know the inner workings of NSB either, but there are limitations that state it can only be used with local drives (no networked drives). Perhaps it is reading OneDrive as a network drive - I'm not sure. Maybe the moderators will chime in.
https://kb.acronis.com/content/14705
https://kb.acronis.com/content/14836
Then there's this, which suggests it may be a VSS limitation...
Nonstop reliability is now running at 100% and here are some of my observations:
1. Solution to reliability was simple: Set the source file size to less than 500gb.
2. I have been running Nonstop for 7 full days without any red x in the backup set!
3. I notice that it takes some time, with the computer idle, before nonstop will perform its backup.
- For Today, I've been using my system since 8:16AM.
- It is now 3:15 PM. The last Nonstop backup is shown as today, 8:36AM.
- The file I've saved 11 times has not yet been backed up.
- I am clicking the nonstop "Backup Now" button, and waiting the 3 minutes for Acronis to "Calculate Time Remaining"
- Acronis finishes within 3 minutes and the last version of my file has been backed up!
Maybe Acronis can provided a way to schedule the nonstop backup on a regular basis in the event that it fails like this. Having to click the Backup Now button signifies that the non-stop has halted operation. The log files confirmed this. I will open a support request to see if there are any workarounds.
Thank you everyone for the constructive comments in this thread. They have been extremely helpful!
Gary
Gary. Good info! A couple of follow ups.
1.) There are several reports of large backups failing in 2020 now. Forum moderator Ekaterina responded to one of the other posts that it is a confirmed issue and the next September release should fix that. No date given though, but hopefully that allows backups larger than 500GB to work as they should after that!
2.) Non stop should be backing up automatically and not requiring you to manually kick it off!
The user guide says that Windows libraries can only be protected by a disk level nonstop backup! Perhaps this is why only a manual backup is catching this file, I'm not sure.
Bobbo_3C0X1 wrote:The user guide says that Windows libraries can only be protected by a disk level nonstop backup! Perhaps this is why only a manual backup is catching this file, I'm not sure.
Pondering on what that statement in the user guide means. Did a search an came up with this Microsoft document discussing libraries. This suggests to me that you can avoid the problem by using the full directory location rather than referring to a library. Looks to me that cause of the issue may be similar to that with symbolic links used by OneDrive. Should such a workaround work? I have a vague recollection that Libraries is a depreciated feature in Windows 10.
Ian
Ian, that might do the trick. On any user folders/files (the user profile), NSB might work best if the source is selected as
C:\users\username\Folder 1
C:\users\username\Folder 2
etc.
Vs, say, picking things like
This PC / Documents
This PC / Desktop
etc.
I don't use NSB though so can't say for sure, but since that is a true path and not a symbolic link or library. As an example, even Robocopy screws up if you copy a users full profile to another location as it gets in a never-ending loop for things like My Documents, My Music, etc. since they have sympolic links that keep repeating back and forth to each other! Microsoft put these in place to support the migration from Windows 7 to Windows 8/8.1/10
example:
C:\users\username\documents (actual path) = C:\users\username\My Documents (symbolic link)
My recollection is that I was able to back up user folders in this way using nonstop backup - the backup file got corrupted some how so I cannot check. Yes just check and it worked - for some reason I can access the backup with the first data file missing - interesting.
Ian