Backing in parts?
I use the Acronis True Image for many years. Now I use the ATI 2019, under Win10.
I decided to add to the backuped folder (having already 97GB) some directory of ~150GB consisting of many numerical files. The external disk still had over the free place of 500 GB. After starting the backup process and ~8h work, the increment file was written of 77.2 GB, but it was no end. After another 8h, the next part having the same 77.2 GB size, was written on the desk, but the process continues, see attachment. This is very strange, as during backup, the numerical files are usually compressed by the factor of at least 2.5, so the 150 GB should be compressed to no more than 70 GB.
I don't understand why the backup is done in many chunks, nor why it takes so long (normally, backup of ~150 GB takes less than 4 hours) and take so large place...
Anybody can help?
Hi, Steve.
Thanks a lot for your advices.
To simplify the problem, insted of incrementing the existing backup after putting to the the already buckuped folder another large one (of size 194 GB), I decided to backup all from the beginning.
The backup process finished after 10h, the tib file was written in my external disk as the "E_2Passport_full_b6_s1_v1.tib" if 169 GB, but with the error message and started again making the full backup, which I interrupted. Even if the tib file is seen in the file menager, it is NOT seen by Acronis. Probably because it is somehow corrupted.
As you can see on the prnscr (unfortunately in Polish), the Acronis Active Protection stopped the program which modified some files. As far as I understand it modified C:\Windows\SysWOW64\dllhost.exe and the "infected" file is
the above tib file.
Do you understand what went wrong? Should I follow your previous advices? Or switch off the Acronis Active Protection?
In any case sending the files will be difficult because of their size...
Eryk
Eryk, Acronis Active Protection (AAP) is reporting only that you are attempting to open the backup image file (.tib) via Explorer which in turns uses dllhost.exe - so is not actually reporting that there is any malware infection with the .tib file. You can whitelist this file in AAP if you want to try to still open the backup archive in Explorer.
See KB 60193: Acronis True Image 2018, 2019 and 2020: Active Protection blocks legitimate applications
I suspect that there is another reason for the backup failing that is related to something within the extra files / folders you are now including.
The log files should be able to be zipped down to a very small size that can be uploaded to this forum without hitting the 3MB file size limit.
Try zipping the C:\ProgramData\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Logs folder and check what size this makes for the zip file. Alternatively, zip C:\ProgramData\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Logs\ti_demon for just the backup logs.
Hi, Steve
Pls find the uploaded the logs.zip file.
I hope it will help you find solution of the problem.
Best regards
Eryk
Hi, Steve
After next 7h, ATI wrote another "full" backup, which is not, however, seen by the ATI, see attached files. Apparently it went into an infinite loop, so I stopped the program.
A attach also the the logs.
Perhaps it will help...
Best regards
Eryk
Eryk, thanks for the zipped logs. All I am seeing are logs showing that you have cancelled the backup or else that it has not reached a conclusion but without showing an error (other than an initial error to report that it couldn't find the initial full backup file for the task).
Looking at the older logs, it does show the backup being successful on May 1st & 5th but then issues from June 12th.
One suggestion here would be to create an Acronis System Report then extract the Disks report text file (disks.txt) from the zip file and upload that to the forum in case there are any errors on any of the disks involved in the backup operation?
Yes, 12th June I decided to include the folder containing a lot of data, which previously was not backuped, to the folder, which was/is usually backuped.
As far as I understand, there is no limit to the size of the partition which can be backuped (?).
Perhaps I should try to backup this data folder separately, after moving back from the external folder?
Eryk
Eryk, it sounds to me that there is something within those additional data folders that is at the heart of the current backup problems. Making a separate backup of just that data will help to confirm this, and if you do a Files & Folders backup, it may also be able to highlight if a specific file is at issue? (Shown in the log).
Yes, this is why I am doing this :)
Let's call the folder of the size of 157 GB with ~2.6E3 files "A". It just was backed up in ~0.5h without any problems. The archive has 97 GB.
The second folder, let's call it "B", of size 194 GB and 1.6E4 subfolders and files, which makes the troubles during archiving, is now in the process of backup since 2.5h. After 1/2h, according to ATI 96% of the job was done, but only about 3GB were processed. Now we have the same 96% and (apparently) 43 GB processed. From the previous tests, I can bet that after about 194GB it will write the tib file, but the program will tell us that it was not finished successfully and will start the next version of backup...
So indeed, it seems that "something strange" is in the data, which, however, should be purely numerical ones.
Perhaps there is some limitation in the number of subfolders? Or files? According to the ATI specifications, there are none, but who knows...
If the result of the test is such as I suppose, I am going to try backup just one or a few of the subfolders of "B".
Eryk
Yes, it finished as I predicted: after many hours the program wrote ~85GB file, but the file was not recognized as the backup of the folder "B" and ATI started to calculate the next full backup. So I interrupted the process and copied the logs4.zip
Then I tried to backup some part of the folder. I suspected most the data which I calculated on some supercomputer in China, suspecting that the problems could be generated by some Chinese character in the data. However, it turned out that the subfolder Calc_China, containing more ~24 GB of data in 40 subfolders, many sub-subfolders and ~5E5 files (more than 10% of the folder "B") was backuped without any problems, see logs5.zip.
I just realized that, unfortunately, logs4.zip takes 6MB, while logs5.zip 8MB, so above the limit.
I could send them by WeTransfer, but I don't know your address.
Eryk
Eryk, I suspect that the new logs won't throw a lot more light on what is the root issue here but if you wish to share them, then put them in a cloud share such as OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox etc and send me a private message with the share link.
Unfortunately, this may be a lengthy case of needing to test different parts of the folder structure contents, i.e. splitting it into parts until you can narrow down the part that is causing issues?
Hi, Steve
In fact I do what you propose since this noon: I split the problematic folder "B" into 4 parts. 3 of them already passed the backup process without any problems, the last one should be finished (or not!) in ~1h.
Eryk
If part 4 does show an issue, then divide that into further parts if possible.
Hello Steve,
The 4th (last) part finished without any problems!
The Acronis Knowledge Base nor the User Guide doesn't mention the limit on the size or the number of files or folders, but the result of the test strongly suggests that THERE IS some limit on the total number of files and/or folders.
Or there is some bug in the code.
Best regards
Eryk
For the moment I don't see any other solution, or workaround...
Eryk
Eryk, that is strange but good news that the backup did succeed when done in parts! This could well be a code issue with very large numbers of files or deep nesting of folders etc!
Acronis have stopped all support for all versions of ATI so the only way to get this fixed (perhaps) would be if it could be reproduced with the new ACPHO application.
What may be worth testing is whether the same issue is seen if you use an alternative backup application such as Macrium Reflect - this would show if the issue is truly with Acronis or with the volume of files involved?
Hi, Steve
I tried Macrium Reflect. It passed the whole folder "B" without any error message, but I didn't find the result, nor in the required place, nether in other places.
In fact I had the problems even before I started the backup process: I could not edit the schedule, even after registration.
I don't understand what's going on.
Fortunately, I can to do backup using ATI, even if in parts. This is not a serious problem.
Best regards
Eryk