ATI 2021 cannot backup to NAS share

Ilias, welcome to these public User Forums.

I am running multiple PC's making backups to my own Synology DS215j NAS across my local network, including several running ATI 2021 and I have not see any issues with those backups working correctly on all installed versions of ATI.

I never used any mapped Windows drive letters to my Synology NAS as I consider that an unacceptable risk for malware being able to attack the shared drive.

All my backups go direct to the NAS using the standard UNC //NAS_Name/Backup naming convention where the NAS is shown under My NAS connections.  The credentials used only exist on the NAS and do not match any Windows user.

I also have a Synology NAS. No problems with backups. I use the same approach as Steve Smith which I recommend.

Ian

I am using exactly this approach for many years.

The problems started as soon as I upgraded to 2021 version.

The problem occurs in both the computers that I have upgraded to version 2021.

I have submitted a support ticket and I am waiting for Acronis responce.

There must be something common in both installations that brakes the connection of version 2021 to Synology NAS.

What type of backups are you doing here?  Disks & Partitions or Files & Folders or are both types of backup failing to the same NAS?

There should be no reason for either backup type to fail, but need to see the logs created by the backup to see if there is any reason shown there?

Disks & Partitions backups using .tibx files writes to the backup_worker logs.

Files & Folders backups (and any older .tib backup tasks) writes to the ti_demon logs.

All logs are found from C:\ProgramData\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Logs where there are folders of the same names.

If posting logs to the forum, please zip the host folder(s) so that the original log names are preserved to help identify them!

Both the backup types are failing.

I am attaching the logs of the last failed backup.

Right now I am backing up to external USB drive and it seems that this operation is working fine.

I see in the logs that it fails to open/create the archive with error 1312. Is it not logging in the NAS?

When I create a backup and enter the credentials, the connection test is successsful.

Thanks for the zipped logs Ilias, only the backup_worker log shows any error information.

28/08/2020 02:34:25:225 PM +03:00 18088 I00000000: Pid: 6496 >>> --id=10001 --action=browse --agent="Acronis True Image 2021 25.4.1.30480 Win" --archive="smb://nas1/Acronis/PC Backups/ILIAS-GT62VR/ILIAS-GT62VR-2.tibx" --ar-loc-username="ilias" --ar-loc-password=*
28/08/2020 02:34:26:437 PM +03:00 14504 I00000000: Pid: 6496 type=log; level=err; message=an error has occured while connecting to '\\nas1\Acronis\PC Backups\ILIAS-GT62VR\', returned error = '1312', last error = '1312';
28/08/2020 02:34:26:437 PM +03:00 14504 I00000000: Pid: 6496 type=log; level=err; message=unable to open archive directory (err -5002);
28/08/2020 02:34:26:437 PM +03:00 14504 I00000000: Pid: 6496 type=retcode; value=5002; id=10001;

If I compare the log for one of my own backups to my Synology NAS, the entries I see are:

28/08/2020 07:00:08:177 AM +01:00 3792 I00000000: Pid: 1236 >>> --id=10001 --action=browse --agent="Acronis True Image 2021 25.4.1.30480 Win" --archive="smb://DROYLS3TB/Backup/HP Omen Steve/DriveD NAS.tibx" --ar-loc-username="acronis" --ar-loc-password=*
28/08/2020 07:00:09:604 AM +01:00 7044 I00000000: Pid: 1236 type=log; level=inf; message=ar#1: opening archive path="\\?\UNC\DROYLS3TB\Backup\HP Omen Steve\\DriveD NAS.tibx" in readonly mode;

The error 1312 in your log has the meaning:

A specified logon session does not exist. It may already have been terminated.

It seems very strange that the above error only occurs when using 2021 and not for 2020.

Yes I know.

I am planning to take a full backup of my laptop and try from scratch windows installation.

But, this will take at least one day to finish (to much data to backup - over 1.5TB and too much software to deactivate before reinstalling)...

llias,

Have tried to add the existing backups on the NAS into TI2021?  This should bring up a Credentials Prompt. That prompt may already be populated, remove all entries in both fields and reenter them correctly and test the connection.

When creating a backup rather than browsing to the NAS use the address bar at the top of the screen and enter the path to the NAS.  At some point the credentials prompt will appear, again clear the entries if any exist and reenter them.

Once connection is established your NAS should appear in the directory tree below for further navigation.

I will try your suggestion later this evening, when I return home.

Thank you very much for your help.

I tried to add an existing backup. The backup was imported correctly.

After reconfiguring it I tried to start a backup and the result was the same.

ilias,

I have another suggestion for you.  Using File Explorer attempt to navigate to the shares on your NAS.

In Explorer, click to select Network then type the path to your network share in the path field.  When you have the path entered, press the Enter key and a Windows credentials prompt will appear.  This credentials prompt will look different than what you see in ATI.  Enter your credentials and when finished click OK or Connect.  The Explorer window should now display the contents of your share.

I have found that ATI refuses to make connection to an unknown share to Windows.  Version upgrades to Windows at times will wipe out network share credentials.  Reestablishing those credentials get things working again.

I am providing a screenshot below as an example for you.

Hello all,

Same problem here, tried on two different PC to backup on NAS Synology 3617XS: same result: impossible with acronis True Image  2021; tried all suggested solutions above with no success. The two PC are on windows 10 x64 pro 2004 up to date and backup work correct with acronis 2020 but with 2021 no way to make it work... I start to lose hope before i see this post and "happy" to see i'm not alone in that case ;) ; i just try with the new build : same problem; working on ftp but not smb...

Please let me know if someone found a fix...

Thanks

P.S sorry for bad english, i'm french...

Franck, welcome to these public User Forums.

No problems at all with your English - it is much better than my French!

I would recommend that you and Ilias report this issue to Acronis by either submitting Feedback along with a system report, or else by opening a Support Case with them.

I am not seeing any issues with my own backups to my Synology NAS (nor was Ian) but there is obviously some issue at work here that wasn't present for you & Ilias in ATI 2020 and which needs to be addressed by Acronis!

You could possibly also try to add an alias for your NAS to the hosts file as described in https://kb.acronis.com/content/59051 (Method 2)

Steve, I have send a feedback and also open a support ticket. I believe it will take some time, but they will respond (it is a new release after all).

I have reinstalled my laptop (clean installation - only drivers installed), but the situation has not changed. Either importing a backup or creating a new one (file or image) the backup fails with the same error.

I have tried both Greek and English as Windows language - no change.

I will try the alias method (later in the evening) and report back. If it succeeds, I will begin suspecting IPV6.

Steve Smith wrote:

Franck, it is only the forum that imposes the very low (3MB) file upload limit - you should be given an option to upload your system report zip file to an Acronis FTP server when your support case is opened and a case number allocated.

You can also use the Feedback tool to create and send the system report with a note advising Acronis that you have opened your support case (with or without the case number).

Steve Smith wrote:

Franck, it is only the forum that imposes the very low (3MB) file upload limit - you should be given an option to upload your system report zip file to an Acronis FTP server when your support case is opened and a case number allocated.

You can also use the Feedback tool to create and send the system report with a note advising Acronis that you have opened your support case (with or without the case number).

Thanks for the info Steve; just received a message that my support case is opened and replyed with system reports and description of the problem... Now waiting for an answer (not before next week i suppose...)... Thanks again.

This issue is a puzzling.  I suspect it is an authentication problem.  I have decided to upgrade my test PC to Win 2004 to see if I can replicate the problem.

In the mean time I would try the following as it has a fairly good chance of fixing the issue:

CAUTION: The following requires editing the Windows registry.  It is advised that you backup the registry prior to making changes.  If you are not comfortable in working with the registry DO NOT do so.  Follow the instructions below to backup the registry

Enchantech wrote:

This issue is a puzzling.  I suspect it is an authentication problem.  I have decided to upgrade my test PC to Win 2004 to see if I can replicate the problem.

In the mean time I would try the following as it has a fairly good chance of fixing the issue:

CAUTION: The following requires editing the Windows registry.  It is advised that you backup the registry prior to making changes.  If you are not comfortable in working with the registry DO NOT do so.  Follow the instructions below to backup the registry

1. From the Start menu, type regedit.exe in the search box, and then press Enter. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
2. In Registry Editor, locate and click the registry key or subkey that you want to back up.
3. Click File > Export.
4. In the Export Registry File dialog box, select the location to which you want to save the backup copy, and then type a name for the backup file in the File name field.
5. Click Save.

Once you have created the backup, navigate to the following key:

• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Acronis\Connections\smb

Under this key you should find the name or IP address of your NAS.  Left click on that to select the NAS, now right click on the NAS and from the menu that appears select Delete to remove the key from the registry.

The above action will force ATI to recreate the connection to your NAS.  You will need to navigate to your NAS share in the ATI app to trigger the credentials prompt.  Once authenticated and connection is established your backups should begin working

 

The upgrade of my test PC from Win 10 Pro 1909 to Win 10 Pro 2004 went smoothly.  I will say that it IS a MAJOR upgrade.  This PC has never had ATI 2020 installed so this is not an apples to apples comparison.  I had 2 of my 3 NAS devices configured for backups from TI 2021 on this machine.  Both worked as I would suspect them to.  TI made the connections with minimal effort and backups ran normally.

I decided to test connection and backup to a new NAS device so configured a new backup to my third NAS, a WD My Book drive.  That proved to be an exercise!  I use \\hostname\sharename for my SMB shares.  For this device, Windows for whatever reason now that I have upgraded to 2004 insists on having a parenthesis name in the path statement to establish connection.  ATI follows MS convention here so I had to include it in the path statement to establish the connection (this was not true previously with Win 1909).  I can only suspect that MS continues to enhance security at the network level.  I suspect that version 2004 is no exception.  This device is attached to my router via a USB cable and is only accessible via a network connection.  An example of the path appears below.

• \\hostname\sharename (at My_Book)

Adding the (at My_Book) to the path got things working for me in both ATI 2021 and Windows - Add a network location.

I would strongly suggest checking your path statement for correctness prior to performing the registry edit described above.

 

Hello,

first, thanks for trying to help us in this strange problem; I've tried all of your two suggestions, unfortunatly, the issue persist after deleting registry keys or adding (...) in the name of shared path; by the way the strange thing is that i can't "Open Location" (using right click on backup name in Acronis) to the Backup folder after creating one or importing one (it ask for password each time but when i enter the correct one it says "Access to the file is denied.") but if i import backup, i can "Search Files" (again, with right click on backup name in Acronis)  and navigate in the backup without re-entering password... And of course, impossible to validate a backup or creating a new one: it start for 1 second and stop immediatly and says it will try again in a few minutes... Also after each aborted try of backup, if i close Acronis and restart it, it says me that "an unexpected error occured during last Acronis session..." and propose me to send a "feedback of the problem" and attach "System Report" ; but as i already said, my system report (i suppose) is too big and the sending not working...

Voilà, that's all i can say about this problem for the moment...

Thanks again...

Franck, out of interest, are you also using IPv6 for your NAS connection as mentioned by Ilias?

All my own network connections are still using IPv4 and have never tried with IPv6 - not even sure if some of my equipment would support it?

Now your support case is open, you should be given details of FTP credentials to use for uploading any large system reports etc.

The thing with Acronis is that it often shows pretty unpredictable behavior with Backups to NASs...

Admittedly that might be due to the huge variability of devices, configuration, etc. but I think there's a lot that could be improved.

For example it seems that Acronis is resetting my share connections established via explorer > network to \\NAS after finishing the / a  (scheduled) task; and that is though I'm using not the UNC path in ATI, but rather the static IP.

As for the topic: I'm not an expert, but you could probably check windows event viewer protocols for smb to get some hints.

event viewer > applications and services logs > microsoft > windows > smbclient > ...

Frank,

The behavior you describe suggests other factors at work beyond any usual connection issues.  It is time that Acronis support become involved to assist.

Steve Smith wrote:

Franck, out of interest, are you also using IPv6 for your NAS connection as mentioned by Ilias?

All my own network connections are still using IPv4 and have never tried with IPv6 - not even sure if some of my equipment would support it?

Now your support case is open, you should be given details of FTP credentials to use for uploading any large system reports etc.

Hi Steve,

not using IPv6 at all, only IPv4

Already send reports to them, waiting for an answer...

da he wrote:

The thing with Acronis is that it often shows pretty unpredictable behavior with Backups to NASs...

Admittedly that might be due to the huge variability of devices, configuration, etc. but I think there's a lot that could be improved.

For example it seems that Acronis is resetting my share connections established via explorer > network to \\NAS after finishing the / a  (scheduled) task; and that is though I'm using not the UNC path in ATI, but rather the static IP.

 

As for the topic: I'm not an expert, but you could probably check windows event viewer protocols for smb to get some hints.

event viewer > applications and services logs > microsoft > windows > smbclient > ...

 Hi,

on the logs multiple errors are shown, involving credentials as you suggest before, but even when recreate smb credentials that dosen't work...

Last night Acronis support responded to the ticket.

I have performed a walkthrough they asked and provided them with the requested logs.

In other news, this is the error I get in Windows Application log when I perform the backup to NAS:

Faulting application name: TrueImageHomeService.exe, version: 25.4.1.30480, time stamp: 0x5f456e7f
Faulting module name: TrueImageHomeService.exe, version: 25.4.1.30480, time stamp: 0x5f456e7f
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x0019c134
Faulting process id: 0x2cd8
Faulting application start time: 0x01d67ee153dcc64a
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Acronis\TrueImageHome\TrueImageHomeService.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Acronis\TrueImageHome\TrueImageHomeService.exe
Report Id: d2523831-3b24-4d9c-b503-03ae01abb200
Faulting package full name: 
Faulting package-relative application ID: 

Enchantech wrote:

Frank,

The behavior you describe suggests other factors at work beyond any usual connection issues.  It is time that Acronis support become involved to assist.

Hi,

yes, waiting for an answer of Acronis Support as i send reports to them yesterday, but not hoping for anything before the middle of the week for now... ;)  

ilias, Frank,

I think you both have differing problems, similar yet different.  Since both of you have support started they should be able to sort out the issue for you.

Could you try to connect to reset the SMB connection in the registry and recreate them in Acronis using the same credentials your are using when you access the shares using Windows Explorer?

In Windows, you might get in trouble if different processes are trying to access the same networked computer (here a NAS) using different set of credentials during a single windows session. Ensuring that all programs use the same set of credentials when accessing an SMB share might alleviate the access issue you are seeing.

Pat L wrote:

Could you try to connect to reset the SMB connection in the registry and recreate them in Acronis using the same credentials your are using when you access the shares using Windows Explorer?

In Windows, you might get in trouble if different processes are trying to access the same networked computer (here a NAS) using different set of credentials during a single windows session. Ensuring that all programs use the same set of credentials when accessing an SMB share might alleviate the access issue you are seeing.

 

 Hi,

thanks for trying to help... but I already do that, with no luck, unfortunatly...

Well, some more relevant information:

I have tried other products and they are capable to perform a successful backup, using the same credentials and nas share. Also, ATI2020 is able to perform a successful backup with the same configuration.

So, it is clearly an ATI2021 problem.

I will continue the case for another 10-15 days. If no solution is found, I will consider asking for a refund.

Ilias, please make sure that you tell Acronis the same information about the other products all working fine along with ATI 2020.

I will do so on our next communication.

ilias,

Most definitely report your success with the other products.  Something certainly is amiss with 2021 for your installation.

Hi, 

I have the exact same problem; unable to backup to nas on ATI 2021. I like to check if there may be any resolution provided by the technical team?

Similarly using ATI2020 for backup is successful to the same nas ☹

I have reported the correct behavior of other products.

Still waiting for their logs investigation outcome.

Thank you for the update. I have tried to explain the troubleshooting steps I have done and describing the issue but I soon realized that the technical support appears to be going over a troubleshooting script which I had to explain each time. This is getting annoying and a hassle!

From my troubleshooting done on my pc, I noticed that the login credential appears to be different seen from powershell. When I browse my backup on my nas or add a nas connection, it would connect as nas-ip address or fqdn\user1. When I click on the backup job to start, I noticed the login credential as myPC name\user1. Example is 1.1.1.1\user1 and PC1\user1. Not too sure if that may be causing the issue.

I guess i will hold on to see if Acronis technical support may have a resolution soon

Ilias,

In helping another user with a similar issue it was found that logon was failing because the logon attempt was being made by the wrong user.

My suggestion here is frankly a guess on my part but might be worth a try.  If you can create a backup task with your NAS as a target and get TI to display a credentials prompt, when you enter the User precede the name with a forward slash.

Example: /username

This may not work for you but I am curious to know if it might.

It is definetely NOT a logon problem.

I can access the NAS share with same credentials through Windows Explorer.

ATI2020 can successfuly backup to this share with the same account and configuration.

Another PC running ATI2020 succesfully backs up to the same share with the same account.

Upgrading ATI2020 breaks the backup behavior. ATI2020 backup task was successful before upgrading.

SMB version is irrelevant to the problem. Both SMB2 & SMB3 fail. I will definetely not open a security whole and try SMB1!

I did a packet trace & occasionally see ATI2021 sending some invalid logins. I will need to do a more detail tests & lookup to see the behaviour on packet capture. 

I have the same behaviour; everything works perfectly well on ATI 2020 or Windows accessing my synology DS1817+ nas on SMB v2 or v3

Questions, are both of you using Windows 2004?  Are you both using authenticated network shares? 

My feeling is that the logon requests being sent by ATI 2021 are invalid perhaps because they are being sent as the Windows default user.  Adding the forward slash before the username would indicate to logon to the domain (workgroup) as the current user which should allow the logon to succeed.

For the ATI2021, as a user we test the connection when we create the backup job/task & it succeed.

During the running of backup job/task, we can't change the way it login to the nas and it would be expected to behave the same manner as to the test connection performed during creation of the backup job/task.

I took a look at the backup log and see error 1321 which I have no idea. I had generated the system report and send to Acronis technical support but seems like the support is asking to do silly task like check disk when doing a backup job to my external USB drive works successfully!

I guess I wait awhile more and if there's still no fix to this problem, I will just look at other backup solution to replace Acronis

Yesterday I had a remote session with Acronis. During the session the support engineer performed various tests.

During the tests we found out that if the task was a simple backup of a directory, the backup was successful.

All tries to backup entire PC, or disk image were failing.

Also, TrueImageHomeService.exe was faulting at the start of the backup.

Logs and dumps were collected and I am waiting for the outcome of the investigation.

In my mind it seems that it is not a logon problem.

Perhaps a disk snapshot problem? Even though I see no VSS faults in the event viewer.

Event error 1321 carries the following meaning:

"The specified user account is not a member of the specified group account."

As I said before, the TI 2021 app is attempting to logon onto the SMB share as the admin user not the current user.  This is the root of the error. 

One of you or both need to try my suggestion.  Again I am not sure that it will work but has a good chance at doing so and would serve as a workaround until Acronis fixes the issue.  You will simply need to edit your credentials to give it a try.

Enchantech wrote:

Event error 1321 carries the following meaning:

"The specified user account is not a member of the specified group account."

As I said before, the TI 2021 app is attempting to logon onto the SMB share as the admin user not the current user.  This is the root of the error. 

One of you or both need to try my suggestion.  Again I am not sure that it will work but has a good chance at doing so and would serve as a workaround until Acronis fixes the issue.  You will simply need to edit your credentials to give it a try.

Hello,

I've just tried your workaround: when i precede the username with a forward slash, it refuse to connect to the NAS and also have tried with a "\" before the username instead of a "/" : it connect but the problem is the same as previously: no way to backup...

By the way, thanks for trying to help ;) 

Also want to add that i can backup files or folder on the same NAS without problem... 

Frank,

Thank you for testing this, I know that adding the forward slash works in the recovery media when connecting to a mapped drive on an NAS for example.

Thanks for confirming that this issue exists with full disk backups and not files/folders.  I suspected that and confirmation does help.

I believe I know what the problem is but do not have a workaround yet, I will keep looking. :-)

While troubleshooting NAS-Backup issues in ATI19, (Cant access path failure, when enabling pre/post-commands for full disk Backups only) i came along quite a lot - not working for me - discussions and suggestions. One of them was discussing a problem, where a user wasn't able to log-onto his NAS with Windows10 due to presumably wrong credentials (not in ATI, but generally). The found solution was to arrange the username as follows PCNAME\nas-user (e.g. MYPC\acr).

Admittedly there was also a lot of discussion about wether it is even possible that this would have an effect or work - and it's not related to Acronis at all, but... what could get worse?

Personally my problems resolved with a change to ATI21, but new ones (like the validation of the full bu-chain instead of my selection to only validate the most recent version (with encryption)) were soon to appear... That's a huge bummer, since i was hoping to be able to spare the NAS discs a bit.

edit: make sure to use the PC- and not the NAS-name. It should work to login regardless of its influence on Acronis' bahavior

I too have a Synology NAS (DS213j) and have never been able to see the NAS under the Acronis NAS Connections. When I enter the NAS address to set up a backup, it will always show up under the Network branch. I've tried to figure that one out and have never been successful.

Also consider opening Windows Credential Manager (via Control Panel, or Settings) and maybe just removing the credential to the NAS so it can be recreated.

And as Enchantech said, remove the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Acronis\Connections\smb\<nas name>

Doing these actions has generally gotten be back to the NAS.

Good news, finally!!!

It seems that I have found a valid workaround for the problem!

All Acronis' support solutions unfortunately did not work. So, I started fiddling around with SMB sharing options on Synology NAS.

After various checks the culprit was found:

It was the setting "Enable MSDFS VFS module" in Control Panel->File Services->SMB-Advanced Settings in Synology NAS. This setting was somehow enabled in my NAS. After disabling it and rebooting the PC, ATIH 2021 version 30480 performed successful backups on NAS with the original backup configuration.

The Synology explanation for the setting is "This option allows symbolic links to point to other SMB servers."

This translates to /etc/samba/smbinfo.conf option in NAS "msdfs root=yes".

So, I have disabled this setting, upgraded 3 PCs to 2021 version 30480 and all backups work fine!

But the question still remains: Why version ATIH 2020 did not have any problem with this setting enabled in the NAS, whereas ATIH 2021 fails with this setting enabled?

Ilias, thanks for sharing your findings here.  I have just checked my own Synology NAS SMB settings and have never had that particular setting enabled as have mainly left these as default other than for the actual top SMB min / max options.