Fails to complete backup

Do you have a validation task set up after the backup?
If no, some security software or firewall software are know to create issues with very long file copies/transfers. Does it happen when the security software it off?
If yes, does the problem happen with a local USB disk? If no, you have a networking/computer issue with the NAS. Test copying large files from the computer to the NAS.

I note that it appears you are running an SSD on the machine that is being backed up. With fast drives and a large backup file network connections can become overloaded and could cause such an error. Not sure if that is your problem but certainly something to look at.

I am seeing the same thing. I am running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit and backing up to a NAS. My backup gets about 50% to 75% and then hangs indefinately. I don't have the luxury of getting the "Failed to open backup" message. I have to reboot to get TI to try again at the next scheduled backup.

Appreciate your comments very much.

I think it has to do with validation. When I try to open "Validate Setup" form, it says "Cannot find Version ?". When I click on "ignore", it goes down to the next version and says it can't find it as well. After I ask to ignore them all, it comes up with the error message that it fails to open the backup file.

I've attached the log which says it made the backup but failed to consolidate.

I have been manually deleting old versions in the backup server.

Ernie

I just noticed it's not a Validate Setup form as I implied in the last note but just a request to validate.

Ernie

Backing up to a NAS can result in validation issues. In fact, I have problems restoring from the NAS using the recovery CD. When I copy the image to a NTFS USB disk, the image validates correctly and can be restored through the recovery CD. The Image is deemed corrupted. I am wondering if this is because of the NAS file system...

For some reason though, validation completes when run separately in Windows. Also, in Windows, opening the TIB file with double click or mounting the image works fine from the NAS though (except that I cannot use a read/write mount)

OK - I'll back up through USB with the same parameters and let you know

Ernie

BTW, how do you determine if it is validating "after" the backup? I can't find the setup for this.
Both validation options that I can find are not checked.

Ernie

This is interesting. I reset the backup drive to the USB drive and asked it to backup and it came back with the same error after trying to backup to the NAS and not the USB. Not only that, it is using the name of a previous backup that I deleted in order to start over again. I asked it to delete all the backups when I deleted it and the backups were deleted but now it is still trying to backup to the previous deleted file with the old backup versions.

I've attached a shot of Acronis with the error. You can see that the name and location are different than those in the error message. Appears that a config file has gone south.

Come to think of it, it did this on another computer as well.

Thanks for your help!

Ernie

Ernie,

I think you should delete the current backup task you are using and create a new task pointing to a new folder on your storage medium. It is obvious that the archive file that stores backup information has errors. Doing what I suggest will straighten that problem out. Accordingly, it might change the outcomes you are having as well.

I did delete the previous backup task and it still uses its configuration even though it is "deleted".

I will uninstall with Revo and get rid of the registry and all files and then re-install.
Will let you know what happens then.

Thanks!

Ernie

Another option Ernie is the TI Cleanup utility, signature link 4 below.

You just caught me in time GroverH. I'll try it now and let you know.

Ernie

I've been having the same "Failed to backup" issue for the last few months, and it does appear to be related to the validation process, but only happens on one or two tasks, randomly.

This suggests a network communications issue - Acronis 2014 can't talk to a NAS very well.

I've tried the "new task" suggestion and the new task would work once or twice before falling over into the same black hole.

I'm really enjoying (not) Acronis 2014 Premium. I haven't had a week go by without issues, problems and irritations, certainly keeping me on my toes and on the tranquilizers.

Ernie and Michael,
This is just a notification of this posting which may or may not solve your issue.
Keep us posted if you try it.

https://forum.acronis.com/forum/56888

Thanks for the link. I will try that if what I've done now fails.
I have uninstalled Acronis, removed the associated registries and folders, used the TIH Cleanup Utility and then re-installed.
So far it is backing up and working fine.
I will allow everything to run for about a week and then let you folks know how things have gone with all computers backing up to the NAS.

Thanks so much all of you for your help.

Ernie

Keep us posted Ernie. I am at my wits end trying to get a good backup to a NAS. If this works I may have to try it.

bT

bitTwiddler wrote:

I am at my wits end trying to get a good backup to a NAS. If this works I may have to try it.

bT

I've given up and reverted to 2010, works beautifully. :)

I too have been fighting this "Failed to open backup" error. In my case I use ATI to perform image backups from one notebook to three different backup storage areas. One goes to my D: drive and is there for emergency use should I be away from home. One goes to my home server (Windows Home Server 2011) which contains RAID 1 storage of 3TB. And the third backup goes to a removable USB Seagate 1TB drive that I keep on my desk at work. It is simply for redundancy to the home server backup.

The backups to the two external destinations are manually run. The backup to D: is run daily as a repeating series of 20 incremental backups.

I erased the backups on my D: drive (did not use ATI which may be the source of the problem.) Since then I could not get a successful backup to any of the destination areas due to the "Failed to open backup" error. It kept looking for the old D: backups even though they were not there. I did not figure out a way to correct this within the ATI functionality, so I eventually removed ATI, ran CCLEANER, rebooted and reinstalled ATI from scratch. This got me going again - but I am still frustrated that the process was not simpler.

If anyone knows a way to remedy the "Failed to open backup" error without doing a full ATI reinstall, please share your expertice! :)

After doing the full re-install including cleaning out "everything" in the registry and in the folders that has to do with ATI (REvo Uninstall in "advanced mode" is good for this), my systems are working. I learned the hard way as well not to delete the files in the backup manually but to request that ATI delete them by indicating the number of full versions (full + increments, etc.) that you want to remain. In my case, I say "1" since any more will fill up our 3 NAS backup devices quickly.

However, I notice now that another system is giving the dreaded "waiting for user interaction" near the end of the backup. I have not responded and this one moves on to perform a successful backup without intervention.

I hope that Acronis will realize they have released an unstable and unreliable version and will rectify the situation. However, I do not know how to send their developers a note. A slip in the code can cause huge repercussions.

Thanks again everyone for your help.

Ernie

Here's a bit more information.
Now, a third computer "Server2" using Acronis 14 is starting to give me serious grief.

It begins the backup (incremental and named "Server2_inc_b6_s4_v1.tib").
When it tries to consolidate, it can't find it since it is looking for "Server2_inc_b5_s8_v1.tib"

I have attached the backup folder list as well as the error message to illustrate this.

Does anyone know where the configuration is so that I can correct it manually instead of having to re-install Acronis in Server2.

This is getting frustrating plus.

If no one knows how to do this, I will contact Acronis and pay them $$ in order to show them their bug(s).

Thanks!

Ernie

The forum program only attached one file so here is the other. Ernie

This situation (where Acronis insists on validating against a non-existing previous backup) has plagued my use of Acronis in recent versions. I keep hoping they will recognize the problem and fix it. So far they seem to be turning a deaf ear regarding this problem.

The problem seems to be worse when I setup backups to multiple destination drives. Something eventually goes awry and I can no longer get backups to work to one or more of the destinations. So far, the ONLY REMEDY I have found is to totally remove Acronis, delete all backup files from all destinations, and then re-install Acronis and run it as if it had never been run on this system before.

That is NOT the way to ensure good backups.

Acronis, - if you indeed monitor your own forum, how about address this issue publicly and advise on a more elegant solution. Or better yet, just fix it!

I notified one the Acronis representatives regarding this problem and this thread but have received no response as yet.

I may be in the doghouse for this questions but is there any other image backup software out there that works better and is more attentive to concerns? I (and many of you) have to once again totally delete and then re-install. I'm losing a lot of productivity over this.

Don't get me wrong - I've been with Acronis now for about as many years as they've existed but this is sure aggravating. Maybe another solution may be to go back to version 10 - it worked fine. And then not upgrade.

Thanks!

Ernie

General comments:
One alternative to uninstalling/reinstalling to fix a backup problem is to delete the archives.xml progam. This link shows how. The archives.xml if the history file of all the backups. This file can also be viewed in Notepad and some users have edited this file with Notepad /Admisistrators permission.

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/55459#comment-175994

The deleting of tib backup files is not a requirement to get things working good unless you absolutely have to have the storage space.
------------------------------------------------
Consolidation causes problems for many. My personal rules is that I avoid all the consoidation settings. I do not use manual consolidation and I totally ignore the cleaup options which use "elaspsed days" or "disk space limits". However, I had good results on both Win 7 and XP pro using custom cleanup with the options "store x number of recent version chains.
Any new task is pointed to an empty storage folder with no intermixing of tib files from different tasks. All new tasks get their own storage folder. Also, I make it a practice of using a different name for each task. No repeat use of the same task name. This helps the user to keep things straight and may even help the progam.

My signture link 2-A points to a new guide on 2014 task creation. Inside that link are more than 50 different links/examples of how to functions. I hope you will consider this link a place to go looking when issues arise.

GH11. Create Custom Full Backup Scheme.Keep 4 versions (chains).
GH12. Create Custom Incremental Backup Scheme. 6 Inc, Keep 4 chains.
GH13. Create Custom Differential Backup Scheme. 2 Diff, Keep 2 chains.
GH14. Custom Differential Backup Scheme . 6 Diff, Keep 4 chains. & folder

Each upload of an attachment will only upload one file but you can do multiple uploads on the same posting so that a response can include multiple attachments.

Ernie: On the last two attachments , it looked like the error showed a path completely different than the path which had tib files stored. TI is so very very fussy about paths to NAS, etc. I wish I could give you examples of good and bad but if you can get TI to create the path, you have a better chance of success and avoid any consolidation.

Thanks very much for your advice, Grover!!

I will do your suggestions tomorrow.

All the best!

Ernie

It worked great Grover by following your guidelines!
Now, we don't have to uninstall and re-install thanks to you.

In order to check what Acronis is doing, I manually deleted an incremental set of backups from a non-critical backup. Sure enough, the ugly error message came back when it tried to consolidate also it does make the backups just fine. I will now just follow the guidelines above in order to get this one working again.

Not sure I want any more Acronis updates unless I'm told that these problems are corrected.

Many thanks to all of you!

Ernie