Notifications

Is there any way to get a response from Acronis?  I have recommended Acronis to several clients and Installed.  I am now wondering what I have recommended and if that was the right choice!

You can try  SSL and 587

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/104692

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/107742

https://kb.acronis.com/content/26124

I am also having this problem.  In my case, I have 50 or so client machines running various versions of ATIH from 2011 to 2016.  ALL machines are unable to send email notifications as of Monday, February 1st sometime after 1:15 PM PST (timestamp on the last notice I received).

I have tested the notifications function in 2014 and 2016 versions using multiple email accounts in various domains such as att.net, yahoo.com and gmail.com.  None are working and all return the failure code reported at the top of this thread.

Event Notifications are a key component of how I use Acronis, as my client's machines are spread over a large geographic area.

I have found no relevant information on this problem in two days of searching, until discovering this nascent thread here.  Thank you, Mr. Wall.

Acronis:  what gives???

Frustratedly yours,

Very Good Customer

Thanks for the response!  I have tried 587 and I receive the same results.  AT&T says to use "465" and that continues wo work fine with "Outlook" and always has.  This is not an AT&T port problem, it is an Acronis problem and you can't even speak with them unless you pay to talk with them.  I have this thing about paying someone to fix there own problem even if they can!!!!!!

My clients are very frustrated as they manuall have to check the status of there backups instead of the email notification.  It also makes me look like, a you know what, for recommending the product and installing it for them.

Thanks again for the reply!

Hello all,

I'm very sorry to know that you've faced difficulties using our software! As a general recommendation I would recommend to configure email notifications via Gmail SMTP server (if not tried before) as described in the following article: https://kb.acronis.com/content/32135

If any firewall, antivirus or other security software is installed on the machine, make sure the following modules are added to the list of trusted applications in the security software:

• C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Acronis\TrueImageHome\TrueImageHomeService.exe
• C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Acronis\TrueImageHome\TrueImageHomeNotify.exe

Please also make sure that the selected port is opened in Windows Firewall.

Thank you,

Everyone,

We'll also try reproducing the issue on our side. We'll update this thread with the results and further instructions next week or earlier.

Stay tuned!

Just an FYI,

I have even tried turning off my firewall, exiting all security and antivirus software, all to no avail.  I noticed other users are experiencing this same problem including gmail.  My last notice from my computers or my clients computers was 1/31/2016.  Needless to say, different hardware, wired and networked environments.  I haen't read anywhere Acronis only supports gmail.

As we can't speak to you, I would suggest looking in your own closet as to what the problem may be.

Thanks, David

Alexander Brajkin wrote:

Everyone,

We'll also try reproducing the issue on our side. We'll update this thread with the results and further instructions next week or earlier.

Stay tuned!

Thank you.  The function is clearly broken for some of us, at least.

Let me add two more datum from my pool.  One of those 50 licenses I mentioned is True Image Cloud 2016.  I am not receiving email notifications from that client as well, just like all my clients who use local storage.  The other factoid is, the machines I used to test various email domains as reported earlier are both running the latest versions of their respective licenses.

I am having the same problem. The last backup notification I received was sent on February 1st, early morning, Pacific time. After that, no more notifications. 

I had not edited the backup tasks, not changed anything. My email works fine. My computer works fine. Nothing changed. 

Today, 4 days later, I started experimenting to see what was broken. I changed email providers: yahoo, aol, gmail, others... I changed the ports: 485, 587. etc. I tried POP before SMTP. I turned off and on firewalls, etc. Nothing worked. It seems that, on a certain day, worldwide, ATI (multiple version, not just one version) just stopped sending notifications correctly. 

I am not usually driven to paranoid ideas. I doubt that all email providers worldwide one day made a change that now prevents Acronis (and only Acronis) products (seemingly multiple products) from sending SMTP messages. 

Two ideas come to mind, both centered on Acronis:

1- some bug in the Acronis products, buried deep in the code, is date-dependent, and started manifesting itself around the beginning of February. Not very likely, but with Acronis programmers, who knows? 

2- MUCH MORE SCARY: in addition to communicating with my SMTP server, ATIH communicates with Acronis servers before or while sending the notifications, and something related to this communication breaks down, which makes the notification thread break down. Given that I have handed the Acronis program my email user name and password, I fear that the program has sent Acronis the Company my email user name and password. PLEASE tell me it isn't so! 

Solid thinking, Yafs.  And disturbing.

ACRONIS STAFF: I would like to point out that the current version of TI2014 on the Product Update page is listed as Build 6688, but the version linked is Build 6673.  I would've posted this in the "older versions" forum, but was not allowed to start a new thread.  Apparently I am still in "potential troublemaker" status in the forums, even though I have been a member here for four years. <g>

UPDATE 2/7/2016

WORKAROUND SOLUTION

It appears that what is broken is SSL / Port 465.  Thanks to Bobby Ramierez (https://forum.acronis.com/forum/111888), it seems that using TLS and port 587 work reliably.  He tested with Gmail and Hotmail.  I tested with ATT servers and got the results he reported (success).

For me, this is only a workaround.  If SSL remains broken, I will have to manually adjust all 50 of my client machines to use the TLS protocol.  Logistically, this is a nighmarishly huge task, whether I remote in or visit each site in person.

In the meantime, this solution might help those of us with fewer machines to manage.

As an Acronis a power user, I expect the SSL-enabled email notification functionality to be restored.  If not, I will start migrating my customer base to another backup solution.

Acronis - Are you listening?

I followed the workaround above, from Bobby Ramirez via zzwerzy: used smtp.live.com/TLS/587. It worked. 

I then went back and tried the yahoo smtp server with SSL/485. It failed. Tried it with TLS/587, and it worked. 

So SSL/485 is broken, but TLS/587 now works.

** What's going on? ** 

I had been using yahoo/SSL/485 for years, and notifications have been working with no problems. Suddenly they stop working, but TLS/587 works. Yet I haven't updated my Acronis program in the meantime or installed a new version. And, around the same time, other users have experienced the same problem as me with Acronis programs, but not necessarily the same program or software version as mine. My other programs that use SSL/485 (including the yahoo SMTP server) still work flawlesssly, so it's not a firewall problem. 

How, why did the SSL protocol suddenly fail globally on Acronis software, without even new software being installed? The only common denominator seems to be Acronis. 

I'd like to reiterate my ideas from my earlier post: Two ideas come to mind, both centered on Acronis:

1- some bug in the Acronis products, buried deep in the code, is date-dependent, and started manifesting itself around the beginning of February. Not very likely, but with Acronis programmers, who knows? 

2- MUCH MORE SCARY: in addition to communicating with my SMTP server, ATIH communicates with Acronis servers before or while sending the notifications, and something related to this communication breaks down, which makes the notification thread break down. Given that I have handed the Acronis program my email user name and password, I fear that the program has sent Acronis the Company my email user name and password. PLEASE tell me it isn't so! 

Acronis: please explain to us, logically, what's going on. 

Case definitely NOT closed. 

Yafs wrote:

I followed the workaround above, from Bobby Ramirez via zzwerzy: used smtp.live.com/TLS/587. It worked. 

I then went back and tried the yahoo smtp server with SSL/485. It failed. Tried it with TLS/587, and it worked. 

So SSL/485 is broken, but TLS/587 now works.

<...>

1- some bug in the Acronis products, buried deep in the code, is date-dependent, and started manifesting itself around the beginning of February. Not very likely, but with Acronis programmers, who knows? 

2- MUCH MORE SCARY: in addition to communicating with my SMTP server, ATIH communicates with Acronis servers before or while sending the notifications, and something related to this communication breaks down, which makes the notification thread break down. Given that I have handed the Acronis program my email user name and password, I fear that the program has sent Acronis the Company my email user name and password. PLEASE tell me it isn't so! 

Acronis: please explain to us, logically, what's going on. 

Case definitely NOT closed. 

It's neither of these.

- The code indeed remains the same and no updates were launched which could've suddenly changed how e-mail notifications work.

- For the purpose of e-mail notifications True Image communicates strictly with the SMTP server using the settings specified by you. It doesn't go to any intermediate servers (unless e-mail server requests to do it).

However, e.g. for Gmail SMTP server settings we located that Google recently enabled additional default security settings. There is an additional setting called "Allow less secure apps" - and if it's disabled, SSL-encrypted notifications won't pass. Enabling it gives True Image proper permissions to contact Gmail SMTP and send an e-mail notification through. It can be enabled here (scroll down to "Allow less secure apps" and turn it on).

Potentially other e-mail providers also enabled additional SSL-related security settings which don't allow programs send in notifications via SSL by default. You can check with the respective e-mail provider what needs to be done - similar to Gmail above - to make e-mail notifications go through.

From our side we'll investigate if anything can be changed in the software in how it works with SSL to work with now default security settings from Gmail, etc.

Thank you.

I have two Win 10 PC's where notifications ceased on Monday Feb 1st just as reported by other users.  The last notification I received was at 5:00PM EST 2/1.  I have been using Yahoo/SSL/465 for years, all the way back to Acronis True Image 10.0 and have never had any problems.

I find difficult to believe that both Gmail and Yahoo enabled additional default security settings on the same day and time as reported by the Acronis Support Director.  Nothing changed on either of my PC's that I am aware of.  

Could a common thread be Norton Security?  I am running the latest version 22.5.5.15.  I checked in settings/firewall/program control and all programs with either "Acronis" or "TrueImage" in them are set to "allow".  One of the two programs listed above was not in the list, I added:

• C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Acronis\TrueImageHome\TrueImageHomeService.exe

Adding it manually made no difference, even with reboot.

Also as reported TLS 587 does work.  SSL 465 continues works with my Outlook 2016 just as it always has.

We could use some more help on this from the Acronis Support staff, right now it seems to point towards Acronis.

Alexander Brajkin writes:

  >...for Gmail SMTP server settings we located that Google recently enabled additional default security settings.

This is vague.  If you expect us to take it seriously, please link your source or state the date this security change was implemented.  Preferably both.  The idea that both Yahoo and Google would implement such a policy simultaneously, with no notification to end users, while not impossible, is unlikely.  If your suppostition that this failure is email server security policy-related were true, a lot more people would be screaming and it would be all over the 'net.  Instead, the problem seems to be focused on Acronis backup software.

I should add here that one of the addresses I tried at the beginning of this debacle was neither in the gmail or att/yahoo domains, but instead a private POP/SMTP server.  That failed too.  And as ENG50 points out, his Outlook 2016 installation is using Port 465 and SSL encoding (and I assume Yahoo) without a hitch.  Yeah.  Come to think of it, I would be getting a lot of calls if those clients of mine who don't use webmail suddenly lost connectivity!  I'd be so busy I wouldn't have time to bandy this about with you.  Instead, I'd know the problem was global and I would be looking elsewhere for a solution.  It isn't and here I am.

This is an interesting problem.  Putting aside being annoyed at the growing inconvenience, I can't wait to see where this goes!

z

I note that this KB article, updated 12/31/2015, recommends using SSL/465 with Gmail: https://kb.acronis.com/content/26124

Thanks to GroverH for pointing that out.

z

Frustrated also Alexander!

I also have AT&T Email using SMTP SSL/465 and my email has never lost a beat.  I am not going to screw around with my email and lose it also since my outbound.att.net SMTP SSL/465 work.

All I am receiving now from Acronis Customer Service via email is I need to buy pay per incident and they would work with me.  I explained I already had a support ticket and gave them the number.  I was told I was going about it the wrong way and had to purchase the Pay Per Incident.  I guess that means all of us with the problem have to purchase this independently.

Not going to happen!

david 

OK, I've researched this at length and the only security change ATT/Yahoo has made recently was a change to SSL as a default security protocol for email... in 2013.  IOW, I have found nothing relevant.

I am hopeful that we will be honored with a substantial and timely response from Acronis technical staff to explain why SSL-enabled notifications will no longer transmit, and a fix.  If none is forthcoming, I will begin migrating my clients to different software asap.

Getting grumpier by the day about this and am tired of spending my time on what certainly appears to be Acronis' problem.

This silence from the Support Staff is deafening.

z

I've found this thread after noticing that my email notifications had also stopped from True Image 2014 that I have installed on two machines. The difference for me is that the emails only stopped working on 9th February. Up until then the daily backup on one of my PCs was notifiying perfectly. The other is a weekly backup that worked on 6th February, but not a week later.

My SMTP settings go through Zoho mail which I have set up to use application-specific passwords as part of their two-factor authentication security settings. Changing the settings to use Yahoo makes no difference, as everyone here knows, nor does generating new passwords. Every other application I have using application-specific passwords (Zimbra, Windows Mail, iPad, iPhone) works fine.

I initially suspected Windows Firewall, so I switched on the logging and tested the email settings in Acronis and was able to see the requests being sent out on port 465 to the IP address of Zoho's SMTP server, so no issues there. I can also telnet to the SMTP server. The emails don't appear in my Zoho sent mail box after 8th February, so evidently the issue is something to do with authenticating against the server on port 465.

It makes me wonder if there's been some change made in SSL across multiple email providers worldwide that had caused Acronis to break when trying to authenticate with SMTP servers. It could explain why mine kept working until 8th February if Zoho didn't apply the change until just over a week later than other providers.

For some reason changing to TLS isn't working with Zoho, even though it should as they support it. So that's left me changing my settings to send via Yahoo using TLS. At least it works and I will hopefully get my notifications back.

I am just joining this topic.  I am having the same problem. My error code is 0x0064022B+0x0000FFF0+0x8007001B.  My notification stopped working with the last transmission being January 30, 2016.  I am using ATI version 2016.  I also have tried a couple of mail services.  The one that I have been using is AT&T.  I also would expect Acronis to look into this problem and come out with an explanation if not a fix.

Received an email from the Senior Support Manager from Acronis:

Thank you for bringing this up, based on your feedback and feedback from the other Customers we have start investigation.

The reason is that some email servers have slightly changed the security protocols but it influenced our notifications so that they can't get through it now. Our developers are working on the issue and as you correctly mentioned - the more people are affected the faster solution would come.

You don't have to pay any Pay per incident, please just monitor our updates and make sure to download the latest build when it's out.

Unfortunately I can't provide any ETA as of now but we are aware of the problem and are working on it. As for now I could only ask you to use one of the workarounds which may not be very comfortable for you or your clients but I hope that the issue will be completely resolved soon.

Hopefully we will get this issue resolved as they are now investigating!

David

Even with the new release just distributed

, Acronis said the email notification problem was fixed, still doesn't work in the Windows 10 - AT&T - Outlook 2016 environment.  Still nothing............

David

I just ran "Send Test Message" to both my AT&T account and my primary email account and it did not wrok in either case.  I used port 465 with SSL encryption and with SMTP authentication checked.  I don't understand how Acronis can say the problem is fixed.  Are they even reading our comments?

Marty

J David Wall / Marty.  I don't have ATT so can't speak to them, but notifications are working for me with gmail and hotmail.  I did have to allow "less secure apps" in Gmail and I also don't use 2-step authentication for the mail settings with this pariticular mail account since it serves the pupose of these notifications only.  

A lot of issues (that I read and have tried to troubleshoot), have often stemmed from an OS upgrade or Acronis upgrade (or both) that had an existing issue that carried over with the upgrade as well.  As a test, perhaps try removing ATIH 2016 completely and trying with a fresh install and see if the mail errors still exist with your ATT SMPT settings after that or not.

First, stop the 4 Acronis services in computere management >>> services.  Then copy the following folder (in case you want to bring them back, but since we really want to have a 'fresh start' I would advise against it:

C:\ProgramData\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Scripts         

Then run the ATIH 2016/15 Cleantool and reboot.  After rebooting, check for leftover Acronis folders as described HERE.  If there are any, reboot again after removing them.  Then download the latest v6559 installer from your account and install by right clicking and "run as administrator" to give it the full access to your system  (FYI, some Antivirus/Antimalware programs have been preventing the Acronis install because of the low level access to the OS, so you may want to disable before installing too).  

Once installed, create a fresh task and a new notification and see if there is any difference or not.

If you are not willing/wanting to do the cleanup and reinstall, and/or if it doesn't resolve the issue, could you not create a dummy Gmail account to use simply for this purpose and have Gmail autoforward to your ATT account?  

David, thanks for your extensive email regarding notificcations.  I already had a gemail account so I changed the parameters on the notifications page to point the notification at my gmail account.  I also turned ON access for less secure apps in gmail. I have attached, I hope, a print screen of my parameters.  If you see anything wrong I would appreciate your input.  Thank you again for your assistance.

David, I played around with the parameters some more and I got it to work.  Thank you again for your help.

Marty

Thanks Marty.......

What "Tweak" did you make?  I don't know why we have to go back and forth between email providers to get these notifications.  This is not the understanding I had when I bought this product and besides that, it worked with AT&T and suddenly didn't with me making no change and these guy's can't figure it out.    "Frustrated"!

David

J David Wall - seems like other people are having trouble with ATT as well.  Gmail has the less than secure apps feature which restores the functionality - not sure if ATT does or not.

You could also try creating a new backup job and a new notificiation and see if that new one works.  Perhaps it's something in the existing task that is failing, but willl work in a new one - at least worth a test.  

I had changed the port to 567.  I changed it back to 465.  I also was trying to log in to the incoming server.  I unchecked that box.

However, it is an inconvenience to have to go through gmail to get to my email account.

Again, thanks for the help.

Hello, everyone!

There are currently 2 notification-related bugs which cause the problems discussed in this thread:

1. The option "Log on to incoming mail server" does not work with secure connections (SSL/TLS). Fortunately, most email services do NOT require this option (Gmail, for instance, does not require this).

2. With some email providers, such as Yahoo and AT&T, notifications do not work if the "SSL" option is used (and port 465 - they usually go together). But most providers offer an alternative - TLS + port 567. This combination should work fine.

I had my Acronis True Image 2016 set to automatically do a backup of my C: drive every night at 8:00 pm.  Two nights ago it stopped working.  Now when I click on "Backup Now" nothing happens.  The parmeters of my backup seem to be the samce as they always were.  Does any one have any suggestions for me?  Thank you.

Marty, please use the Log File Viewer app to look at the logs produced by ATIH to see if there are any indications there as to why your backups have stopped?

The other possible cause is if you have a 'stuck' task that your backups are now 'queued' behind.  If so, then you should see KB document: 1859: Acronis Scheduler Manager and use the Get list command to list out all of your scheduled tasks.  Each task will show as a separate line similar to that below from one of my systems:

inst=den start=yes loc task=0-0 > get list
 Id ExecApp ExecCmd
--- ---------------
CurUser 2 (DellStudio\smiths):
  2-2  ~*TrueImageHomeNotify* /dummy /script:"33FA0A08-59F1-417D-9937-9D3D01F368F8" /uuid:"33FA0A08-59F1-417D-9937-9D3D01F368F8" /run_mode:?RunMode?
  2-3  ~*TrueImageHomeNotify* /dummy /script:"64525498-C01F-48E9-8607-94EC56894AB3" /uuid:"64525498-C01F-48E9-8607-94EC56894AB3" /run_mode:?RunMode?
  2-7   *TrueImageHomeNotify* /dummy /script:"F3F4995C-2477-46F3-9E4F-BA6FBCE92FE6" /uuid:"F3F4995C-2477-46F3-9E4F-BA6FBCE92FE6" /temp
  2-10  *TrueImageHomeNotify* /dummy /script:"ED99C1B7-A8BD-411D-8BC1-C4127CCC240E" /uuid:"ED99C1B7-A8BD-411D-8BC1-C4127CCC240E" /run_mode:?RunMode?
  2-11 ~*TrueImageHomeNotify* /dummy /script:"9628B523-4781-4920-A3E1-8E4798EA1D9A" /uuid:"9628B523-4781-4920-A3E1-8E4798EA1D9A" /run_mode:?RunMode?
  2-12  C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis\TrueImageHome\TrueImageMonitor.exe /shutup
inst=den start=yes loc task=0-0 >

If you then open the C:\ProgramData\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Scripts folder, you will see script files with the same names as those shown in your listing, i.e. 33FA0A08-59F1-417D-9937-9D3D01F368F8.tib.tis 

You can then open each of these in turn with a standard text editor such as Notepad and look for the actual task name in the <display> section, i.e. 

<uuid>33FA0A08-59F1-417D-9937-9D3D01F368F8</uuid>
    <display>Docs</display>

If you want to remove any scheduled tasks, you can select them using task 2-2 where 2-2 is the task number from the listing above, then task delete to remove that specific task.  Alternatively, you can use task zap which will remove ALL scheduled tasks.

Steve, thanks for your comment re: my problem.  I am a real novice at this and would like some more help if you have time.  Where do I find the Log Viewer app.  When I look at "All Apps" I don't see a Log Viewer.  Also, where do I find the KB document:? 1859 and in what app do I execute the */ commands?

Marty, please click on the links to these tools in my earlier post above as shown in image below:

Steve, thank you.  I could not find anything in the log files.  The last log file was for 7/5/2016 and it reported that the operation completed successfully.  It was after the 7/5/2016 backup that the backups stopped.  I then deleted two tasks that were related to ATIH and then the "Backup Now" button worked.  I am currently doing a backup and will wait until this evening to see if it starts automatically. Thank you again. Marty