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Backups failing due to old backup files being deleted

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Hello,

We've been using ATI for many years.  However, since recently upgrading to ATI 2021, we've started having a sporadic problem.  We have ATI configured to backup daily, creating a full version after every 4 incremental versions.  We have it set to cleanup versions older than 14 days.

The problem is that Acronis seems to cleanup old backup files as expected, then, sometime later, it will decide that it wants to see those old backup files before it will continue to do backups.

 The email notification we get says:

XXXX-XX-WIN10 task is waiting for user interaction.

Description: Acronis True Image 2021 Backup of XXXX-XX-WIN10

Information: Failed to open backup \\NAS\XXXX-XX-win10\Acronis True Image 2021 Backups\XXXX-XX-WIN10_inc_b1_s5_v1.tib. Check your network connections.

Details: If you moved or renamed it, return it to the same location or restore the initial file name, respectively, and then click Retry.

 

However, b1_s5_v1 is the version from several weeks ago.  The current backup version is b5_s1_v1 and there are still old versions b3_* and b4_* in the backup folder. 

There seems to be no good reason why it should be looking for such an old version.  However, it won't run without being able to see the old, long deleted backup file.  The only solution we have found is to manually go to the affected machine, open ATI, go to the "Recovery" tab, wait for it to complain about being unable to find the old files, and the click "Ignore" repeatedly until stops asking for old backups.  After that, the next backup will run successfully, and will likely continue to run successfully for at least several weeks.  

Any ideas?

 

Thanks,

Rick

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Sorry for posting this multiple times.  Every time I tried to post it, I got a message indicating the web site had an error.  Then it took me back to the post, as if it didn't work.  I had no idea it was actually posting.

Rick, it is difficult to try to explain why you might be seeing the errors related to old / missing or deleted files just based on the information given.

The normal reason for such errors is because files have been deleted outside of the options given by ATI via the Automatic Cleanup settings or else via the Clean up versions tool for the task that created them.

When ATI creates any backup files, it also records information about those files in an internal database, such that if files are deleted via Explorer an error is given because the database does not match the status of files found on the drive.

Running Validation for the backup task will help clean up the database if each error reported is answered with either Ignore or Cancel (depending on which option is offered).

The best recommendation that I can make here is to first run validation, then change the Automatic Cleanup settings from using deleting files older than 14 days, to using the alternate option of 'Store no more than X recent version chains / versions' where you set X to be a value such as 2.

Using that alternate option means that as soon as the X+1 new Full backup image file has been created successfully, ATI will then delete the oldest backup chain or version.

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your response.  I'm quite certain that none of our users would be going out to the backup location on our NAS and manually deleting old backup files.  I can't imagine any other way that they are being deleted, except by ATI's cleanup function.  Everything we have here, the computers, the NAS we are backing them up to, etc., has been here for years and we've never had this problem until after we upgraded all the computers to ATI 2021.  And the problem pops up on one computer here, another computer there, and so on.  So, it's not like its a matter of one user screwing around with things he/she shouldn't be.  I really have to suspect that it is a bug in the way the cleanup process is working in ATI 2021.  

I suppose we could try changing to deleting old versions after 2 versions, instead of deleting older than 14 days.  However, it would be hard to tell if that makes a difference, since the problem is so sporadic. 

Rick 

Rick, are you using different destination folders on the NAS for each of the PC's that are backing up to it?  If not, then I would strongly recommend doing so - this will ensure that no actions on one PC can impact the backups created by a different PC.

Speaking personally, I backup all my own PC's to my Synology NAS using a mix of different versions of ATI from 2018 thru' 2021 and ACPHO and have never seen any issues with backups being either deleted incorrectly or reported as being missing etc.  I always use separate folders on the NAS (sub-folders of the NAS \Backup\ folder).

Steve Smith wrote:

......

Speaking personally, I backup all my own PC's to my Synology NAS using a mix of different versions of ATI from 2018 thru' 2021 and ACPHO and have never seen any issues with backups being either deleted incorrectly or reported as being missing etc.  I always use separate folders on the NAS (sub-folders of the NAS \Backup\ folder).

My approach is similar. Never had such an issue to backups made to my NAS.

Ian 

Each computer backs up to its own dedicated folder on the NAS.  So there is no way that one computer would be likely to wipe out backups from another computer.  

One thing I am wondering about:  When we upgraded the first couple of computers to ATI 2021, none of the computers would register with the Acronis cloud dashboard.  Acronis support had us go through a process where we first upgraded to 2021, then saved the Acronis settings, then uninstall ATI 2021, reinstall ATI 2021, then import the settings.  Although this worked to get the dashboard function working, I'm wondering if it somehow screwed something else up.