Very unimpressed with ATI 12

Dave,

You need to enter the 2011 serial number (I assume v11 is referring to v2011) and then when asked the 2012.

It would have been better to try a repair install first.

What type of NAS do you have and are you using mapped drives to access it or UNC, IP path? Although you don't use credentials, do any credentials for the NAS exist in Windows Credential Manager?

Hi,

Thanks for the quick response. I am entering the v11 serial number. v11 refers to version 11, not 2011. i.e. Acronis True Image 11 Home, build 8101.

I would have tried a repair install but the post I looked at to fix the error said that didn't help.

My NAS is a buffalo linkstation pro II duo. I am referring to it by mapped drive letter. I can't see any credentials for it in windows credential manager. After the Checking Credentials message, I got prompted for the username and password. I clicked on cancel and was still able to see the drive in ATI12, so it was a completely pointless and annoying process.

regards
Dave

Mystery is solved - the programmers in their wisdom forgot that the serial number length used to be quite short, 2011 and 2012 are not v11 and prior serial number format savvy. In this case the only way around the problem is to download and install the trial version, select upgrade to full and then insert your upgrade serial number. Well I lie there is another option re-install v11 and then re-install 2012 (hopefully).

Because Acronis products logon or are able to logon to the system account (they can run a task even if you've neither logged on or you have logged off) they work more reliably with network devices if you use UNC paths. Mapped drives are only valid to your login and disappear when you logout.

As you can install v11 I assume you are running XP or Vista. I have a feeling that 2012 assumes all network connections are 'secure' and require passwords, Acronis products certainly don't work for those people who have never given their XP system a password as then there is no account to logon to, this might be the same as far as a NAS is concerned, in fact thinking that through, it is the same.

Ok, thanks I'll try that, although I would expect when I put the upgrade serial no in it'll say this is an upgrade, what's the original serial number and I'll get the same problem. If that happens I'll do the v11 route (although maybe that's why I'm getting the could not open error in the first place)

Hi, thanks again for your help. The trial workaround did work, although I did have to enter the old serial no.

I got to the stage of running a backup. To be honest, there seems to be so much wrong with this software, I hardly know where to start, so I'll just have a brief run through it and try and list all of the problems/issues that I faced.

I managed to specify the destination NAS through browsing the network tree. Fortunately it was on there when not mapped. My other NAS isn't when not mapped (that's the NAS I'm backing up from, my L drive - I have two NASs)

There's no way I can tell to type your UNC path into either the source or destination boxes, which would presumably solve all the NAS and credential problems. Why that is not provided is beyond me. This means of course that unless I work out how to get my L drive to appear under network I can never use UNC for the source drive, so negating all the clever advantages you mentioned with NAS drives now.

Anyway, so I get to selecting the backup source. I'm doing a file backup. I select my L drive from the tree in the source window. It calculates (for a long time - why, the progress bar is useless anyway - more on that later) and estimates 500GB (but no tick next to L drive in the right hand side, where I selected it, I should have noticed that then). Fine. So I start backup. Progress says under a minute, then 23 mins, then completes after a few mins. I realise something is wrong. So I check the backup and to my surprise, it's backed up something completely different. My C drive documents folder.

So, start again. I notice the 'Dave' folder in the source tree has a solid blue check box, which is an odd thing to see when you expect a tick or no tick. What does solid blue mean? Maybe this is the cause of My Documents? Anyway, I click in the box, get a tick, click again and clear it and the box looks normal. I try creating a custom category with my L drive in it. That backs up nothing! Just 5k. Hilarious.

Eventually I spot that if you select the L drive in the left hand part of the source window, it will back up the whole L drive.

So, the progress bar. Starts off with 20 mins, goes half way across quite quickly, and works its way up to 5 hours. Honestly, how could the bar ever start off at 20 mins for an estimated 500GB? If it divided the estimate by any fixed average write speed, even hard coded, it would be ten times more accurate.

Right, the finale, the icing on the cake, I get up the next morning and there's an error on the screen. A file it can't backup. That's fine, I'm not bothered. I look for the ignore button. It's been removed!!! I know retry won't work, so I click on cancel, and the WHOLE backup is cancelled, the 250GB backup file is useless (actually maybe even deleted) and the ten hours of work is wasted. It's Monday morning, and it's difficult for me to run another backup before next weekend.

So, I don't need all the clever new features in this version. I just want reliable backup and restore, and this version is far less reliable and useful than the version from 4 years ago. Still very unimpressed

Do I deduce from the silence then that all of these are known new issues kindly introduced by the Acronis developers into this 'new improved' version?

All I want to do is a simple backup. Should I get a refund and buy something else, or can I expect all these issues to be sorted out in a few weeks?

This will not solve your problem but might make you realise that you are far from the only sufferer!
Acronis True Image is an excellent product. I should say that I have always been paranoid about making backups. I take a full backup of the C: drive once per month and differentials in-between. I back up all of my Documents and Outlook every day.
I started off with the 2010 version of Acronis True Image which worked quite well. I quickly switched to 2011 and that performed similarly. Then I switched PC’s and now have a powerful 64-bit machine. It is fair to say that those little quirks that I had taken for granted on the old machine became more pronounced at this time. The report on each backup was typically: “The C: drive has not yet been backed up”. Just below this it indicated: “The backup was successfully completed yesterday at 22:30 (194Gb).” Alternatively, the backup would hang up with the red message that it had failed. On looking in the event log there was no mention or indication of an error. I also got quite attached to Acronis’s way of forecasting how much time was remaining to job completion. The record was 76 days 15 hours 56 minutes. I had not been feeling too good that day and I was wondering if I would be there at the conclusion of the backup, which fortunately finished 3-4 hours later!
I then saw that I could download a trial version of True Image Home 2012 for 30 days without committing myself to a purchase. I thought this version would surely correct the erratic behaviour of 2011. I downloaded the product and installed it. This was a life changing event.
Backups never went to completion, the PC would not shut down cleanly which resulted in the dreaded black screen with white print at each startup and restart. Perhaps worst of all it caused Windows 7’s own Backup and restore to stop working. I was now in a position where neither Acronis nor Windows could make a backup.
Support from Acronis was purely administrative. I was asked to send an Acronis system report. I e-mailed it the same day. Six days later the Acronis technician sent an e-mail to say they were still waiting to hear from me. The same day I sent the report again by e-mail and also by FTP. Eleven days after this I received another e-mail requesting the “process monitor log”. I have now received three e-mails saying I needed to purchase the product as the trial period would expire the following day!
I said at the beginning that this is an excellent product. Let me qualify that statement. It is a lethal product if you want to backup your precious date and keep your PC running smoothly. It is an excellent product if you have no valuable data to back up but are a “geek”-preferably unemployed or retired so that you have plenty of time. In the last 4 weeks I have spent about 30 hours installing, re-installing and uninstalling first True Image 2012, then the same for True Image 2011which no longer worked. However, even with Acronis uninstalled Microsoft’s Backup and restore was still out of action. I have spent hours reading articles in the Acronis Knowledge base and threads in the Acronis forums and in Microsoft’s TechNet. The problem is that the Acronis uninstaller removes parts of the product but leaves whole chunks scattered around the operating system. Acronis advises the use of their cleanup utility which I downloaded and used. It removed some elements that the uninstaller had left in place. However, when I later did a search on “Acronis” in the registry there were still some 20 entries left. At this stage I gave up and put my PC in the hands of a highly respected technician who got rid of all traces of Acronis on the machine. He also confirmed that my PC was virus-free. My PC is now running sweetly again and I am at least able to use Windows Backup and restore.
So, buy this product at your peril!

I still find it impossible to do a decent backup. As I said above, if there are errors the backup fails. If you set 'error handling' options, you find they aren't error handling options at all. If I try setting silent mode so I'm not asked about errors, all that does is make your backup fail automatically after errors.

This backup product is now many years old. It has all sorts of features I don't want or need. However, it does not have one feature which I consider incredibly useful - the ability to automatically ignore a file if it produces an error. Rather than have a 500GB day long backup fail for one file and a trivial error.

I still haven't made a successful backup with this software, and to be honest, I don't want to anymore. I've spent a ridiculous amount of time now, and I have no confidence that I'll be happy even with the next release. It's an insult to have released this and charged people money for it.

Dave,

You haven't mentioned whether you've tried accessing your NAS by UNC or IP, which is the preferred method of access. Have you tried imaging to a USB or internal connected drive? I ask, so that we can perhaps narrow down whether there is an installation or conflict issue, or if it is only connecting to the NAS that has problems. It might also be useful to know if an image can be made via the recovery CD.

What error are you actually getting now?

Have you raised a ticket with Acronis support and provided them with an Acronis system report?

Colin,

Thanks for the reply. If you have a read through my post #5 I describe what happens with mapped drives or UNC. I have two NAS drives and the source one does not appear in network places. Since you can't type in source/dest, you are completely dependent on what windows shows you in browsing the directory tree. If it doesn't give me an IP/UNC, then I have to map. So I use mapped for the source and UNC for the dest. But in any case, I know the software is seeing/reading and writing the drives. The errors I get are fairly simple file errors, like access denied on a file. Having said that, whenever I click on view details, I get 'an unknown error has occured'. Again, unimpressive. Honestly, dealing with simple file errors - permission, not found, in use - is such a common and simple issue when dealing with filesystems I can't believe this software has so much trouble with dealing properly with the errors.

I am dealing with Acronis support directly, but I must say this. I've been writing software for 25 years, I know a bad release when I see one. This product has many years of development behind it, and at this stage, its backup/restore abilities should be highly polished. Instead, they are far worse than my four year old product. That is hugely worrying. I have no confidence that this software will be reliable and useful for backups for me anytime soon, even with the next release, and being a customer and having paid for it, I have no desire to waste many hours of my time working with Acronis to fix it. I have no problem with other people that do - if they like the product and want it to work that is fine. If it was one error, I'd probably be fine to work with support, but I have quite a strong impression of this software now and it's not a good one.

The only thing that matters to me is reliable backup and restore. I don't care about scheduling, compression, one large file etc etc. Doesn't matter to me. Because this software didn't work for me, I've gone and done my backup with rsync. I'm well aware of rsync's lack of features when it comes to using it as a backup tool, but it's completed without errors, on the same source and destination, and has given me a very reliable backup

Dave,

Are you making a files and folders backup or disk images? The access denied for files and folders can be things like PST folders and if you are using Outlook or Windows Mail, it has been discovered they lock the PST files even if they've been closed after first being opened of course and 2012 baulks at this, though it has no problems if Outlook etc haven't been opened before a backup is made.

I assume you've no databases open and making transactions dyring backups.

Are both your NAS's Buffalo's and the same model and firmware? There is one brand popular in Germany where one model is not recognised.

If one is seen, it seems odd that the other isn't, how are they connected to two separate network cards or via a switch/router, what happens if you swap their ports around?

Hi Colin,

This is a files backup. I know what causes all these errors - that's not really the point. The way to get a successful backup is not to go through all 100,000 of your files and make sure every permission is right and none of them are locked. Because it's going to happen sometime and your backup will fail. The way to sort it out is in the software. [as an aside, unix-centric programs like emacs, cp and rsync rarely have the same problem. I guess they're intelligent enough, or the locking system is cleverer] In any case, the easiest piece of code in the world is

lock file for readonly
if fail, log error
move on to next file

So why after years of development can't ATI do this?

My NASs are completely different makes, connected in the same way. The QNAP one (the one that needs to be mapped) I could probably work out how to get it to appear in the network list on a browser. Not the point though, because that is not really the error. If ATI users were treated as expert enough to be allowed to type in the UNC, then we wouldn't have any issue.

Well Dave,

Now you've mentioned the magic word (again :) ) QNAP is the brand 2012 is having major difficulties with (as you've now discovered) There are two models that have been reported to work and the rest don't. I know this one of the items that is supposed to be looked at /fixed when the update 1 comes out.

QNAP seems to be very popular with the German users and they were amongst the first to discover the non compatibility.

OK, well, may be related although I am reading the drive fine, and I think it's a bit odd to get access denied etc errors based on accessing as a mapped drive rather than UNC. In any case, the make of NAS is unrelated to how ATI handles the error, which is basically to just fail everything.

Looking through previous threads on QNAP, it seems there are very many people unhappy with the release, and I'm not the only one complaining about the ridiculous (lack of) error handing.

Anyway, having been a reasonably happy customer for over four years, I am so angry that they insulted their customers by thinking that this release was acceptable to charge money for, that I have asked for a refund and don't want their software anywhere near my PC

One other point. I have the same problem with a Buffalo NAS and got round the problem by typing the UNC path into the box rather than pointing to the drive. I also found it more reliable to use \\nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn\folder rather than \\Share_name\folder. My previous version (2010) used to backup my Outlook file(s) even if Outlook was running. ATI2012 constantly fails to back them up unless I use disk/partition type which will backup all files whether in use or not. Not only that but if I use files/folders type and exclude the folder with the Outlook files ATI still attempts (and fails) to back them up.

I am a non-techie and that is why I chose Acronis in the first place. Simply because I do not understand any thing about UNCs and mapped drives and SMBs. Acronis 10 was quite good. Acronis 2011, I spent several days in getting it installed. I am completely exasperated with Acronis 2012. I have been struggling with installation for 2 days now. My PC hangs as soon as I enter the logon password, the mouse freezes, assorted programs do not load, I get strange errors. I finally managed to get the software installed and then it wouldn't backup to my WD NAS. Got in touch with support (very, very helpful and patient), but they couldn't do much. Basically they are working with a bad product.

I browsed through the forum and managed to figure out what was \\ShareName\folder and got access to my NAS. Started the backup and saw that it would take about 4 hours (2011 used to backup the same partition in about 40 minutes)!! Cancelled the backup. Started a non-stop backup to another partition in the same hard disk. Nothing happened. Waited for a few minutes and cancelled that backup too.

Restarted the PC. Again back to hanging when I enter the password for logon. Right now, I have gone back to a system restore point that I had set two days back. Removed all Acronis products and files and registry entries. Wondering what to do !!!!!

Dave UK wrote:

All I want to do is a simple backup. ... can I expect all these issues to be sorted out in a few weeks?

End-user experience of the product in the last five years = not likely.

Krish,

In the start button, search for services.msc. CLick on it to launch it. YOu will see a list of services. Right click on Acronis Sync Agent and Acronis Non Stop Backup, choose properties. Select disable, OK. close that. Restart the computer.

Does this solve the slow boot?

Don't trust the time estimates of ATI. They can be completely off.

...So, I don't need all the clever new features in this version. I just want reliable backup and restore, and this version is far less reliable and useful than the version from 4 years ago. Still very unimpressed.

Dave, you are definately not the only one. Have a look at "money talks". Most of them only wish a reilable software to makes images, true images I mean...

Armin Weber wrote:

... a reilable software to makes images, true images I mean...

Absolutely. This is why we all purchase backup & recovery software. Reliability is everything. Our time is so valuable and limited the software needs and must function flawlessly with an interface that is simple and not changing every major release. What you learned 4 years ago should be the same as today. Always open to some changes in the user interface but they had better be well thought out and extensively tested before release into production. As almost 30 years in software development, I can say without question, this product can be made completely stable, reliable, fun to use and worth paying an annual fee to keep my life safe in my data recovery needs. However, this is my last year (major product release) supporting Acronis, either they make a herculean effort and resolve the problems I'm having or I'm gone forever. Too many other options available. I'm asking everyone to post their problems / concerns and request Acronis to make good on their support claims of "I completely understand your concern. And will make it work within our limitations." and "...resolved to your satisfaction..." = About 95% of all the problems posted in this forum can be resolved before the next major release, the question is will it happen and will the updates be more frequent to help everyone using the product become more effective and efficient? It's all about integrity, passion and your individual drive to make the best product out there. We aren't even close with this release.

Give yourselves a break. Once you have your OS and programs up and running on your OS drive, buy another identical drive and install it in same box. Then use Acronis to set up an identical copy of OS and apps on the new drive. Whether or not you keep it updated is up to you. I just keep it for that time when your OS system goes down and can't be recovered. All I do is swap over the cables and update a few files and I'm in action again. Simplist and most reliable way I've found to get up and going quickly - not in Acronis's manifest I'm afraid. Once the OS is updated and I am happy it is a goer then I repeat the process with the disk that was the main drive. It sure beats spending a whole day or so messing about with Acronis trying to decipher forums and trying suggestions and bootable media disks that will not load Acronis or recognise the computer that they were created on, backups that will not install properly or install across a simple network for that matter. I've been using Acronis since the 2008 version to 2011 version. Its nice to play with but when the chips are down I am not confident that I can rely on it, it is a bit like the 18th century explorers setting off into the great unknown - you never know what is going to be thrown at you.