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.tibx question - one file or two?

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I have two full single version backups of a partition to another disk set up. My Windows 10 PC has 4 internal drives. For simplicity, lets say that one is a backup of the partition on disk 2 onto disk 4, and the other is a backup of the partition on disk 3 onto disk 4, where disk 1 is the boot disk. 

The first backup works fine. When first run, 2 files were created on the destination disk: "2.tibx" (12k in size) and "2-0001.tibx", containing the data. On subsequent backups, the "-0001" file is replaced by "-0002" (single version) and all is well.

The second backup, although configured the same,  creates only a single file - "3.tibx" which contains all the data (400GB). No error is reported. When it runs again, it fails "an error occurred during backup" - and now there are two files - "3.tibx and "3-0001.tibx", BOTH full size, with no 12k control file. Every time it runs, there is an error and an additional 400GB file appears - the previous is not deleted, although it is supposed to be single version scheme.

I do have a ticket open, but it is slow going. I have removed and recreated the backup multiple times and the result is always the same. Since there is been little information posted about the new .tibx format with TI2020, I wonder if I am correct that new (single version at least) backups generally have a small (12k in my case) control file, and a serially numbered data file? Like the rest of my backups? What could it be about this one source partition?

It seems to me that the fact that only one large file is created on the first run is already an error, although no error is reported at that stage. 

Anyone have any insight? Thanks!

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You are correct about there being a "control" partition.

One possibility about the different file sizes is that the task with the one large file is for an incremental backup (incremental backups are included in the file with the full backup) and the other is a differential file, in which case each differential is in a separate file.

It is possible that you are seeing the problem with "large" backups covered in this thread. Although in that case there is not the repeated creation of new file (as far as I can recall).

Is ther any error message when the backup fails? As a first step you could look at the log files using the utility which can be downloaded form the MVP google drive. The information is far more abbreviated than previously, there are new log files that are not currently accessible using the utility.

One thing that occurs to me is that there could be error on the source disk. It may be worthwhile running chkdsk.

Ian

This sounds like the large backup file bug noted in Ian's reply.

However, I would also make sure that each backup is in it's own uniquely named subdirectory and that each backup has a unique name of it's own to avoid any potential "cross-pollination" of backup scripts when writing to the destination directories.

As for the small 12kb file - that ends up getting created anytime there is a consolidation or cleanup in 2020.  You can't remove it and it appears to be required for recovery!  Not a fan of this, myself, since I expect each and every backup chain to be completely independent of other chains and that each backup chain be recoverable based on it's type (like differentials should only ever need the original full and a single corresponding differential backup file, and not throw errors if other differentials are missing - especially when they were properly cleaned up in the Acronis True Image GUI). 

Wait:  I thought the .tibx format was only with the ATIH2020 boot media (which I use for Full and Incremental backups on one of my PCs).  And what's this talk of multiple files?  I only get *one* actual file (for example MyBackup2019-09-11_1012.tibx) for (that is, containing when ATIH2020 looks inside) the entire chain of Full and Incrementals.

On my other PC, ATIH2020 isn't using the .tibx format (it's still using separate .tib files the the Full and each Incremental); is it supposed to?  Er, maybe that's why I'm still having no issues creating 1TB backups with it?

Geez, I came here just wondering what people thought about the .tibx change (which I'm only seeing with the ATIH2020 boot media), and now I'm deeply confused.

This .tibx is used only for Disk/Partition backups, but if you are carrying over a task from ATI 2019 in which the chain is already there with .tib files, it will continue with .tib.

For incremental backups, each increment is added to the .tibx.

For differentials, each diff is a new .tibx (-0001, 0002, etc).

On cleanup, the original .tibx file will always remain as a small file.

One additional comment to Bruno's answer, the small .tibx file (approx 12kb) is a metadata store for all subsequent files create for the backup task, as such is always required.

Thank you very much for your replies, BrunoC and Steve Smith!

OK, now I understand that the reason I'm seeing no small .tibx file is that I'm doing incrementals, not differentials.

But I am creating new chains with ATIH209 and they're not .tibx, they're still (as noted) "separate .tib files...the Full and each Incremental".

I'm thinking my next step is to create a new backup task/job and see if it starts creating new chains as .tibx on that PC; I'll report back either way.

coyote wrote:

But I am creating new chains with ATIH209 and they're not .tibx, they're still (as noted) "separate .tib files...the Full and each Incremental".

If you have saved customised backup settings before upgrading to ATI 2020 I understand new tasks will use the old format (this behaviour was discovered during beta testing). This may also happen if you clone a task - I have not checked. 

Ian

IanL-S wrote:
If you have saved customised backup settings before upgrading to ATI 2020 I understand new tasks will use the old format (this behaviour was discovered during beta testing). This may also happen if you clone a task - I have not checked. 

Thank you very much Ian, good to know!

I created a new task manually, and all is well now since it created a .tibx file!  I kinda miss not knowing at a glance in File Explorer how many Incrementals there are.