[Warning: 6 years later, still not resolved by the company] Why does True Image 2015 exclude web browser folders from backups by default? I lost all my Google Chrome userdata...
I am horrified to take notice that AFTER I ran a recovery that all my userdata in Google Chrome (regular home user version) disappeared. At first I thought that something went wrong during my last backup, but I checked all my Acronis backup archives after older versions, but it was not there. After lots of panicking I think I found the culprit. The folder was in the default Exclusions list. I've attached a screenshot of the Acronis exclusions list on my PC in the post (and blurred out the user profile name). My question to anyone at Acronis, their MVPs or anyone else: Why are you exluding these folders in the first place? This folder is more than just temporaty web browser history. It contains userdata to, aka: bookmarks, open tabs (the "session" file), themes, add-ons that you use, plugins, saved passwords etc. Those are important stuff for Pete's sake. Some users don't have browser cloud syncing enabled or don't use it for various reasons, mainly senior people who don't know about the feature. Even so, when I buy a Backup program like Acronis True Image 2015 I at the very least expect to be able to backup everything on your drive. (Of course pagefiles and hibernation files and other files can be explained, but I don't get it about web browser userdata folders.) Also, I know the chances are pretty low, but is there a way for me to get back these files now? I did the recovery last night. I am using Windows 8.1, so there is no VSS in there to work with. I still have all my Acronis Backup archives from a few months back if that can help. (And I know I can for future backups remove exclusions, but I want to know why these excluded folders are here in the first place.)
Unlike previous versions of ACronis, Acronis 2015 is using the Windows VSS to create a snapshot of the data on the disk. VSS has some files not to snapshot lists in the windows registry. You can delete these entries if you want.
These are not just temp folders. Under Appdata/Chrome a number of application data folders are no longer backed up that were with previous versions. I had to recover an old copy from an Acronis 2013 backup which had these folders included. I expect an image to include everything unless I explicitly define not to back up a folder, hense an image / snapshot of the PC. I can understand not backing up a Hibernation file however in the backup software if you select full that should include everything, customers should not need to maniuplate settings just to save a small amount of space on the image size. Given the popularity of Chrome I would expect Acronis to make sure the data files are backed up.
One additional note the newer Versions of Acronis have pop-ups for Acronis upgrades, just turning off the notice via windows does not stop them from occuring which is what the Acronis forums says to do since there is no option in app to turn them off. I found the only way to stop them was to turn off the service all together that checks for product updates. This is a real bummer and borders on harassment. Acronis used to be solid however the new bubblegum interface is poor and users should have an option for the old style interface say 2010 style.
Im making these recomendations as I have been a long time Acronis users. I know a number of people in IT moving away from these products due to the new interface and bugs. Rather then pushing a new version every year we need to have the existing release cleaned up and an option to pick a classic or modern interface. Guranteed this will bring customers back.
With out having to go searching thru my Registry, does anybody have a list of the files that VSS excludes ?
And to Cyborg1024 - Which Acronis service did you turn off to stop the spam ?
The solution I found was posted on the Acronis forums, the one that I tested as completely stopping the Ads was to disable the True Image Monitor service, others have reported just creating a firewall rule to block it from the web will achieve the same results. In any case its not bugging us on that machine any longer. This was on my sons gaming PC we did this for the agent was actually interuppting the games that were full screen. The Acronis instructions for just disabling notifications did not stop the Ad's. Very poor that the option isnt built into the application.
For the Chome bit you can go into Exclusions on the backup options and remove the exclusing from Chrome in Appdata, I suspect they were trying to avoid temp files from the browser but ended up excluding Bookmarks and other critical files in the process. I corrected this on the PC my wife uses. Acronis 2013 didnt have this problem, starting to make me wonder if anyone should upgrade. If you version has the features you need and works why change it.
You should then be able to save that as the default backup option.
Very Very Bad, so disappointing!! I have lost 10+ years of work. I want my bookmarks too. Acronis is not the panacea I was thinking it was. I have just recovered from a major Win 10 corruption and had to reinstall Win 10. I overwrote it with my Acronis backup thinking I was safe. I was wrong.
User data should NOT be considered temporary.
Hello all,
I've registered your feedbacks in our internal system, so that mu colleagues can consider future changes in the product.
Thank you!
Hello all,
I've registered your feedbacks in our internal system, so that mu colleagues can consider future changes in the product.
Thank you!
Another item in Exclusions, by default, is the System Volume Information. I discovered that when this isn't backed up, you lose your OS System Restore points and even worse, System Restore is TURNED OFF! I bet few Acronis users even know this- but they'll find out if, after doing a boot disk recovery, they find they need to uses a System Restore point. Another user here pointed me to the SVI in the exclusions as the reason my Restore points were missing and he suggested deleting it from Exclusions. But, it's not obvious that to delete an item you need to look for that very tiny x at the far right corner of the item. I had tried clicking on the item, it then changes color, then using my keyboard delete key- but that didn't work. I finally noticed that miniscule x at the far right corner. Please change this so that after clicking on the item, the delete key will delete it!
Joe
My solution to Acronis Default Exclusions was to clear out all of them permanently so, as far as I can tell, the only items that are excluded are the ones I choose. This is done by running CC cleaner prior to each Backup and then selecting which items to remove or not.
This way Windows system restore remains useable for at least the latest restore point or more if they are needed.
After making these changes I noticed that when Acronis backups are running the VSS service is no longer running so I presume it is not being used by True Image.
And here we are on the latest True Image 2016 and this BUG is STILL being shipped. I just lost 6 months of favorites/bookmarks and cookies because TI still isn't backing up the Chrome profile because of the default exclusions.
There are days when I can't figure out why I've stuck with TI for so many years. Today is one of those days.
Bruce.
For those of you dissapointed with Acronis- I STRONGLY suggest that you try Macrium Reflect. They offer a free version to try out. I've been experimenting with it for the past few weeks and I like it alot. It has a traditional user interface that I consider well designed. It doesn't by default exclude any file types. It was able to produce a boot media on a flash drive on my 10 year old Dell, it has easy access to the log files. I've emailed the company with several questions- both sales and technical questions and I always get a fast response. It EASILY created a WinPE boot media, no Linux. It downloaded all the right MS files- examined the system- then voila, it created the WinPE- it was a no brainer. For the time being- since I already have Acronis- I'm going to use both. And, just to be sure, I finally got around to making a Windows image- though that is a very limited system. So, if my drive dies- I'll 3 ways to recover.
Joe
This displeases me. My OS got borked so I successfully did a restore. But ALL of my chrome bookmarks are gone!!! WTF? Why is this a default setting??? I should have dug deeper when setting this up for the first time. But damn it!
Hello all,
First of all let me apologzise for the issues you are facing after restore. We've discussed the list of default exclusions with the development team and it's planned to be reconfigured. If you would like some items to be removed from the list of default exclusions, please post your feedbacks to this thread or in PM. For now you can alter the list of exclusions as follows.
Thank you,
I can't speak for the correct exclusions for the other browsers but for Chrome:
C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\UserData
should NOT be excluded. There are multiple instances of this, one for each user.
However., I believe it would be safe to exclude (using the wilecard for user name):
C:\Users\*\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cache
I'm not sure if the "Default" ever changes.
Bruce Chastain
In MHO the sense of a backup is to be able to restore a hard disk to exact what it was at time of backup. So any exclusions includíng those files given in registry FilesNotToSnapshot should n o t (!) be part of the default setup of any backup program.
If I really want to exclude something, I can set this by myself!
Bruce, Berti
Thank you for taking time to share your opinion! I will sum up all received feedback and send this information to the product management.
I can't speak for the correct exclusions for the other browsers but for Chrome:
C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\UserData
should NOT be excluded. There are multiple instances of this, one for each user.
However., I believe it would be safe to exclude (using the wilecard for user name):
C:\Users\*\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cache
I'm not sure if the "Default" ever changes.
Bruce Chastain
This worked great, thanks. Change the exclusion
C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\UserData
to
C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cache
Acronis should implement this....
I usually hate "Me too" postings, but I'm going to make one. I just wasted several hours trying to find my wife's Chrome bookmarks in a number of backups. And now I know I might as well not look for my Firefox profiles, either. In other words, unless Acronis (unadvertised) defaults are overridden, a user's work environment cannot be restored from an Acronis backup.
This is unconscionable for a supposedly professional product!
Patrick, I suggest giving up on Acronis, as I have. Get Macrium Reflect. With that program, you can't even if you want- to NOT back up everything when doing a disk backup. You can with file backups. You can download a free version that does everything most of us want to do. I paid for it because I want to participate in their user forum.
Joe
I just had a friend encounter this "feature" first hand.
After about a year of acronis running daily backups, he had the need to use one of them.
Couldn't figure out why both his firefox and chrome profiles were missing. They weren't in the backup.
Found that they weren't being backed up for the entire year.
Why was this ever set as a default? A FULL backup should restore EVERYTHING to the way it was, including (especially in this web based day in age) things like BOOKMARKS, SAVED PASSWORDS, COOKIES, etc.
Luckily I can go and modify my backups now, so that they're ACTUALLY FULL backups.
Being that I'm still running TI 2015, and he's on 2016, and it's still a problem in the latest version? It's been at least a year and the defaults still exclude *actual user data*.
This is a big fail. I can understand people moving to other software after this kind of dataloss, that should never have happened to being with.
I just check the fairly recently released build 6571 of TI 2016. It's a tiny bit better. Under Exclusions there is now a checkbox "Files matching the following criteria" preceeding the exclusion list. But the exclusion list still contains browser profile data, the check box is checked by default, and you have to look at the Exclusions tab to find this out. You are still out of luck if you foolishly assume an "Entire PC" backup (for instance) produces a backup of the entire PC.
Patrick, even worse than losing your bookmarks, etc.... is that you lose your Windows Restore points! I found that out only after having done a full disk restore- I had a need to use one of those restore points only to find out there were none.
I have since moved to Macrium Reflect- for which- you may NOT exclude ANY files for full disk backup. But I keep Acronis too because it's faster doing file backups if it's a very large number of files- such as my Documents folder with many thousand files. I still do an occaisional full disk backup with Acronis too- along with a Windows backup. Can't have too many backups, in my opinion, and I store these both on a 2nd internal drive and my 4T USB external drive.
Joe
Take note that the default exclusions as set in True Image follow the default exclusions set in Windows backup. Even though loosing this data from a backup is more than an inconvience such data is not critical to creating a restorable system image. As for myself I remove all exclusions in the default exclusions list that start with C:\ and the System Volume Information when configuring a backup. Doing so does increase the size of a backup a bit though so that is something to be mindful of.
Take note that the default exclusions as set in True Image follow the default exclusions set in Windows backup.
I suspect that many of us that have been ignorant of the Acronis exclusions have been just as unaware of the Microsoft exclusions. I certainly know that is true for me. And we obtain 3rd party backup / recovery products like Acronis True Image because the functions within Windows does not fulfil our needs. Discovering that Acronis purposely implements some of the Microsolf deficiencies is not a selling point. If you doubt that, reread Joe's comment suggesting I switch to Macrium. Not following the Microsoft example is definmitely a selling point in this case.
Even though loosing this data from a backup is more than an inconvience such data is not critical to creating a restorable system image.
But system recovery is only one (and a hopefully seldom needed) reason for creating backups. Restoration of deleted or unwisely changed data is much more common. Or lately, restoration of data following clean reinstalls of Windows 10.
As for myself I remove all exclusions in the default exclusions list that start with C:\ and the System Volume Information when configuring a backup. Doing so does increase the size of a backup a bit though so that is something to be mindful of.
That's fine if you even know to look at the exclusion list. I didn't even know there was a reason to look. I assumed the exclusion list was something for users to set, not something the vendor set.
I just had a friend encounter this "feature" first hand.
After about a year of acronis running daily backups, he had the need to use one of them.
Couldn't figure out why both his firefox and chrome profiles were missing. They weren't in the backup.
Found that they weren't being backed up for the entire year.
Why was this ever set as a default? A FULL backup should restore EVERYTHING to the way it was, including (especially in this web based day in age) things like BOOKMARKS, SAVED PASSWORDS, COOKIES, etc.
Luckily I can go and modify my backups now, so that they're ACTUALLY FULL backups.
Being that I'm still running TI 2015, and he's on 2016, and it's still a problem in the latest version? It's been at least a year and the defaults still exclude *actual user data*.
This is a big fail. I can understand people moving to other software after this kind of dataloss, that should never have happened to being with.
I had the same experience this mornin! All is lost and I couldn't have said it better myself Ryan.
I've got True Image 2016, but it's not 'True' at all when some things arn't back-uped! This is an EPIC fail. A backup program that doesn't backup Full with a Full backup! I've got no confidence in this program at all anymore. I'm just a simple user laying his trust in a program, he's also had the stupidity paying for!
And again this is gonna take me a lot of time to restore all the things I've lost!..... EPIC fail !!
Fortunately, I noticed the exclusion of Opera files when I set up my backup, however, I have to think that including those browser exclusions was a deliberate act of sabotage by one of the Acronis programmers. There is no way that someone could be stupid enough to put those exclusions in there without malice.
My 2016 backups are half the size of my C Drive so I wonder if I can rely on these backups for a FULL recovery.
Hello All,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts about default exclusions. We aim at removing browsers` user profile folders from default exclusions in the next version of the program. Until then you can either remove those exclusion rules manually in backup settings or use browsers` synchronization feature that allows storing bookmarks online (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/sync/, for example).
We may still leave folders with temporary files (cache) excluded by default.
Hope, if your backup validates successfully, you do not have to worry about restoration. There must be many Windows` own backups (system restore points) that are stored in \System Volume Information\ folders and are excluded by default. This exclusion rule will remain unchanged.
Regards,
Slava
Fortunately, I noticed the exclusion of Opera files when I set up my backup, however, I have to think that including those browser exclusions was a deliberate act of sabotage by one of the Acronis programmers. There is no way that someone could be stupid enough to put those exclusions in there without malice.
My 2016 backups are half the size of my C Drive so I wonder if I can rely on these backups for a FULL recovery.
Hope, most likely a full restore would succeed. I've had to do it several times- but I keep many backups, to both a 2nd internal drive and an external drive. I recall the last time I had to restore my boot disk, the 2 most recent backups failed- but the 3rd most recent succeeded.
Joe
Hello All,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts about default exclusions. We aim at removing browsers` user profile folders from default exclusions in the next version of the program. Until then you can either remove those exclusion rules manually in backup settings or use browsers` synchronization feature that allows storing bookmarks online (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/sync/, for example).
We may still leave folders with temporary files (cache) excluded by default.
Hope, if your backup validates successfully, you do not have to worry about restoration. There must be many Windows` own backups (system restore points) that are stored in \System Volume Information\ folders and are excluded by default. This exclusion rule will remain unchanged.
Regards,
Slava
Slava, since external hard drives are both huge and cheap- I can't understand the desire to make the backup smalerl by excluding the System Restore folders. After the first time I had to do a disk restore- a few days later, I had a need to do a System restore only to find out there were none. I didn't realize why until somebody in this forum explained that they were excluded. I think it's reasonable that some people might want to exclude those files- but it should be based on understanding that they are excluded by default. I suspect most people never look at the exclusion list. I never did- since I knew that I didn't want any exclusions and I presumed, falsely, that unless I chose to exclude some files- none would be excluded. Perhaps, when we create a new backup, ATI should ask the user if they are happy with the default exclusions- or some way to ensure that the user understands the trade offs.
Joe
Slava,
I again want to empasize what I wrote earlier in this post (#16). The purpose of a backup program is to provide an exact image of the hard drive contents.
I fully agree to Joseph Zorzin comments above. Excluding files does not even make writing of backups faster.
When after a recovery I find information, which I do not need any more, I can delete this after(!) recovery -
but if information is not contained in a backup I´m lost !!!!!!
Hope wrote something about a deliberate act of sabotage - I believe he´s right.
There must be many Windows` own backups (system restore points) that are stored in \System Volume Information\ folders and are excluded by default. This exclusion rule will remain unchanged.
What!!?? So If I do a restor with a full Acronis backup I loose all system restore point that were available at the time of backup? That makes no sense at all! I have no idea how to identify a system restore point file, but I am certainly going to find out so I can remove it from the exclusion lists.
There is no excuse that users of Acronis should have to dig down to this level of Windows internals to get a useful backup. Is Acronis trying to drive customers away? (Or am I the only Acronis user that has relied on Windows' system restore points but doesn't know how to identify a restore point file?)
Patrick, best bet is to remove "\System Volume Information\ folders " from the exclusion list- and even better, remove everything from the exclusion list. By contrast, the competition (Macrium Reflect) has NO way of having any exclusions from disk backup. When I asked about that in their user forum- some expert said it's a bad idea for a disk backup to exclude anything for reasons that are way over my head. They do allow exclusions from file/folder backups.
Joe
I've removed the exclusion and taken a new backup. I now know why I lost my restore points when I did a system restore about a month ago. I wasn't happy then but assumed I had done something wrong. I find it hard to believe that someone at Acronis thought this was a good idea.
Maybe Macrium is the way to go. Can you use the Windows File Explorer to drill down to the file level in a Macrium Reflect full system backup?
Patrick, yes- with Macrium, you can "mount" a full disk backup as a drive- then do whatever....
Joe
Will give Macrium a try, but what I'm really looking for is a program that is simple, freeware and does what it says! I don't mind paying for stuff but the time and effort you have to put in after the program f**** up is just too much and your money is also gone up in smoke (argh the agrevation! Still havn't had the time to get all my google settings and favorites in order). And to 'Slava'... man there is nothing you can say that doesn't make this 'error' an epic fail. I really think acronis' only reply could be: 'sorry guys we fucked up and we fired the moron who implemented this!'
Think i'll go back to norton ghost... if it still works lol (And if you all got some other suggies, let us all know!)
Just a remark: reading the Acronis 2017 manual (beta version, next after ATI2016 version) shows even more excluded files...
I suspect they are trying to make use of their Cloud faster by reducing the default size of backups, but it is going to lose them customers. If this is their future direction, they are losing me.
Will give Macrium a try, but what I'm really looking for is a program that is simple, freeware and does what it says! I don't mind paying for stuff but the time and effort you have to put in after the program f**** up is just too much and your money is also gone up in smoke (argh the agrevation! Still havn't had the time to get all my google settings and favorites in order). And to 'Slava'... man there is nothing you can say that doesn't make this 'error' an epic fail. I really think acronis' only reply could be: 'sorry guys we fucked up and we fired the moron who implemented this!'
Think i'll go back to norton ghost... if it still works lol (And if you all got some other suggies, let us all know!)
I use Macrium Reflect's free version on my older Dell- and it does everything I want. The full version has features most of us don't need. Try it and I bet you'll like it.
Joe
Ah thx! Will try that. Also found 'Simple data backup'. Didn't know there was so much out there and free also. Think I'm not gonna pay for anything for some time to come. Let's see how that's gonna turn out! Thx Joseph (btw norton still works! ;-) but slow...)
Same here. After restoring the system from a corrupt ssd. Suprised to find the lost of my years's chrome bookmark. Considering moving away from acronis.
Just a remark:
In the meantime I do system backups using Acronis TI2015 rescue media on a usb thumb drive. This is much faster than the installed Windows version and does not suffer from all these issues.
Recovering single files or folders from my backups works well under Windows - that´s why I still have Acronis installed.
Alternatively, use a Chrome extension such as Xmarks bookmark sync to store a copy of all your browser bookmarks in the cloud provided by Xmarks. I use this to keep the bookmarks updated across several computers plus if you do forget to remove the default exclusion for the Chrome folders, all you need to do is reinstall the extension, sign in and get your bookmarks back again.
Just to set the correct scene here, Firefox bookmarks would also be lost when using the default exclusions, along with all System Restore points (stored in System Volume Information folders).
System restore points and all other content are backed up when you use a rescue media (USB or CD) for backup.
Of course this is a little bit inconvenient - you have to shutdown Windows completely (note the different shutdown mechanisms in Windows 10 and Windows 8/8.1). But this gives you a real backup of your Windows system.
Just to set the correct scene here, Firefox bookmarks would also be lost when using the default exclusions, along with all System Restore points (stored in System Volume Information folders).
Ah! So that's what happened to my Restore Points a while back.
Regarding Firefox, it's not just bookmarks. Extensions and plugins (along with any associated customization) are lost; cookies are lost; history (if collected) is lost. It can be a royal pain to rebuild that.
I gave Acronis feedback about this. I advise others to, too.
Just to set the correct scene here, Firefox bookmarks would also be lost when using the default exclusions, along with all System Restore points (stored in System Volume Information folders).
First off, Steve thx for being a volunteer! I (and I think WE all) appreciate your time spend in these fora!
But... I have to say here 'the correct scene' is still the enormous fail in programming (not syntactic or semantic but pragmatic I mean) from Acronis! Eventhough there are also work arounds and add-ons, it's not what I've payed for. A full backup is still a full backup. Is it so hard for them to roll out a small update deleting the entries in the exclusion list? I think all peeps who bought 2016 will be helped that way in one fell swoop. (That list shouldn't be populated in the first place)
Eric, whilst I agree in principle about Exclusions being that which the user should select themselves rather than being defaulted to the items this topic has been discussing, there are certain items that I would always want to exclude from my backups.
For example, I would never want to include othe Acronis backup files (*.TIB), or system temporary files such as Pagefile.sys, Hiberfil.sys and Swapfile.sys. These files alone can increase the size of a backup by 10's of GB on an average system and apart from the Acronis .TIB files, the system files get recreated on the next boot to Windows.
I occasionally do an offline defrag of my system drive by booting into a WinPE environment then delete these particular system files before running the defrag.
As for the chance of Acronis changing these default exclusions - that will only come about if enough users submit feedback and complain about the issue. I suspect that for the majority of users, they live in ignorant bliss about such things and will scratch their heads in puzzlement trying to figure out why all their bookmarks, extensions, settings for their browsers all disappeared after needing to restore or recover their computers! Unfortunately by that time it is far too late to do anything about it, unless they happen to have performed an offline backup using the rescue media (where they are included).
Same here. After restoring the system. Suprised to open Chrome with--nothing!
This is very bad :-(
The lost of my years's chrome bookmark.
Considering i and moving away from acronis. (3 licenses)
After many years!
Submit feedback. (Use the link at the top of forum's page.)
I replied to a survey Acronis sent after I purchased ATI 2017. I complained about the default exclusionand they responded, "Regards to exclusion, I would like to inform you that Acronis mostly excludes temporary files and browser settings. However, it does not exclude any document or system files".
We all need to complain that is is not an exceptable attitude.
I agree, backup exclusions should be optional and not defaulted particularly when doing a full backup. This should be a simple update that Acronis could implement right away. Its clear to me that Acronis is not listening to their user base and is more focused on rolling out new products each year that continue to have substantial bugs. Acronis back in the day was the preferred product for our data centers. Sadly with its evolution it has degraded signficantly to what it is now.
I still have many Acronis products in my tool belt but like others Im faced with changing due to the shear lack of good support and addressing issues that have been outstanding for far too long. I have been following this post for a long while and would have thought by now one of our Acronis liasons would have been able to escalte this issue for a proper resolution.
To say they need to hear about the problem from so many individuals to correct it is nonsense. A problem like this is easily remedied. I have worked with many companies with rapid turn around on software updates for various problems. As soon as its known to be causing an issue the programers need to be notifed and they can work to have it addressed. In this case its litteraly just an exclusion that could easily be removed. I dont mind as well if Tib files or swap files are excluded by default for windows however that really should also be an option you select. In my own department we roll out updates to hospital images all the time to correct problems as they are found.
Im old school on backups, if I select full I want a full backup not a selective or partial backup. Having an option to reduce backup size by exluding temp folders etc should be a selectable option for the user.
I will hold off on buying any more Acronis products until I see that they are back on board with polishing the exsiting product rather then just pushing a new version every year. I can also say that several of the tech savvy people I know have moved away from Acronis due to the direction the software has moved and the signficant bugs impacting successful restores.
One additional recomendation, Acronis should include a set amount of recovery support for individuals with the purchased product. Good luck everyone.