ABR11 - Biggest load of bugware ever..?
Since upgrading from ABR10 to 11, I have had nothing but problems caused by bugs. Just for info and discussion, this is a shortened list:
* PCs have apparently lost their backup plans. I've edited the plan and re-applied it to the groups, but the plan still doesn't appear under the PC
* PCs with the ABR11 agent only show the plan name, not the GFS tasks under "Backup plans and tasks". In ABR10 it was obvious if a task had failed because it would say "Error" against, say "Daily backup". With ABR11, it's not obvious which task failed. Why were the tasks moved to a Run button drop-down?
* Jobs have died and now can't be removed from the console, even though directly connecting to the machine shows no running tasks
* An annoying "Number of activities that need interaction: 1" box which pops up when the console starts, and fails to show anything which needs attention
* Management Console crashing when a machine's backup job is selected
* Random crashes in mms.exe producing a Visual C++ runtime error
* Despite asking the console to remember credentials, it resolutely fails to do so
* Storage node fails to connect to the SMB share where the archives are kept (the Windows host can still connect)
I hope there's a maintenance release soon, or I'll have to re-install and go back to ABR10...at least that worked more often than it didn't.
(All machines are 32-bit XP. The SMB server is OpenSuse 11.4 with a 6TB RAID3 array connected by a private 1Gbps network to the storage node.)
Marcus, if it makes you feel any better (doubtful), I see almost every single one of those errors too. It isn't just you.
I had very good luck (overall) with ABR10 (and 9.5, and 9.1, and 8). This is really disappointing.
Jason
Hi,
I jump in here, just upgraded my test environment from 10 to 11.
first, the problem with the credentials. I found a new menu under Options-Console Options-Credentials cache. There is a option to remember credentials between console sessions. Maybe this will work for you Marcus.
I deal for a long time now with the connection to SMB-shares (e.g. NAS). After a long time I found that Acronis can connect to the share only if I provide the username with a domain. Even if the NAS is not a member of the domain the connection will only be made if I supply it like "hostname\username" and the pw. Instead of the hostname sometimes I use the IP of the NAS. Works so far. Windows doesn't have the problem, only ABR since V10.
I see other things like you too, but what is really frustrating for me is the naming of the backup plans. I cannot assign my own name anymore. I create custom backup plans and they are named "Backup Date Time (of task creation)". This is really useless, as I have sometimes more custom backup plans per machine and I need to rename them like drive-servername. The view "Backup plans and tasks" is worthless then too, cause you will never find what you are looking for, unless you remember when you created the task for the machine. Also no option to show the label that you can set in the plan.
I'll keep ABR10 for now.
CU
Thomas
The only strange thing that I have are ghost backup jobs that where in policies before that I cannot remove in anyway. Even completely deinstalled and reinstalled ABR11 Virtual Edition.
Where do these ghost jobs come from?
The only strange thing that I have are ghost backup jobs that where in policies before that I cannot remove in anyway. Even completely deinstalled and reinstalled ABR11 Virtual Edition.
Where do these ghost jobs come from?
The jobs reside on the machine/client. I noticed the same after the upgrade. No Jobs in the management console, but running (old) tasks.
This is how Acronis works. You don't need the console. The jobs are scheduled locally and are running as long as they are there.
I think we need to clean/delete all remaining ghost tasks from V10 manually.
CU
Thomas
Hi there,
Luckily I only switched ONE Linux machine to ABR11. Nothing but problems after that.
Created one big Support-Case with german Support-Team, but for 9 Days no new infos, hints or suggestions :-(
The Linux machine uses an old CentOS 4.x , but the minimum requirements (kernel 2.6.x, glibc 2.3.2) fit.
I only use some simple full/diff backup-plan to one smb-share a week, another one to different smb-share the other week.
So I hope to get two shares which contain 2 weeks of continuous backups.
But backup-plan of the first week either won't start at all, or is running amok and starts over and over again.
Only thing in common is, that the mms service crashes - strangely after the backup is apparently done right and before the status-email should be sent. After starting mms service manually , same backup-job starts again and again and again.
The backup-plan of the other week works reasonably ok, but the status-email also didn't get sent, because mms service crashes. Even wrote a little crontab-script which checks if mms service is running and if not starts it again.
After waiting for 8 days for ANY reaction of the german support I removed ABR11 and installed latest ABR10 version again. Hopefully everything is working fine again.
I will give ABR11 a try again, after some bugfix-release in the comming months.
--
Markus
This has Deja Vu written all over it. No 11 wasn't the buggiest version. 10 was :) They just about had Echo Server working fine (with the exception of backing up to external USB hard drives) and what did Acronis do? Immediately discontinue development on the Echo series and came out with BR10. It was the worst, most horrid nightmare in the universe.
Well... they just in the last few months got BR10 pretty stable and .... what the heck ... her comes BR11. It is bug filled and will probably take a year and a half (as it took BR10) to become stable. My guess is at that point along will come BR12.
I really don't think Acronis is bothered by the fact that their software is bug filled. They are more intetested in the bottom line. People spent a fortune to upgrade to and/or purchase BR10. Everyone's maintenance ran out the first year and it was no more functional than a screen door on a submarine. How do you increase the bottom line? Come out with a new version and make users either renew their maintenance contract, pay to upgrade or pay to purchase.
Acronis hasn't had a rock-solid, stable version in 5 or 6 years and it doesn't look like BR11 is going to break that vicious cycle because it isn't profitable. Acronis is very, very short sighted as are lot of other sofware vendors today. By coming out with new versions they increase their bottom line this Fiscal year but what they don't realize is that by never having a stable version (and I won't mention support) that every year that goes by they keep losing more and more loyal, returning customers. Pay me now or pay me later...
Jim I couldn't agree with you more. I personally wouldn't touch BR11 until after the third or fourth update.
Me either. I am sure we all have better things to do than debug their software. I think BR10 became more or less stable with U3 which was maybe a year and a half after the initial release. I'll check back January of 2013 :)
Hi all,
I am using ABR for years with local licence server. ABR10 (U4) works stable, periodically losing license used status. Upgrade from ABR10 to ABR11 did not work for me. Agent upgrade step failed with unknown error code. I had to uninstall ABR10, cleanup all left traces, folders and settings with Acronis cleanup utility although don't know why because it could be a part of uninstall procedure. Cleanup forces to uninstall all other innocent products (Disk Director .....). After rebooting new fresh install of ABR11 was OK but I can't manage local machine because managed machine service is stopped and can't be started again. Environment is Win7 64 bit. Waiting for support, if any.
I agree with Jim. Spending time for testing such unpredictable and unstable software is more and less stupid (of course with paid maintenance).
I have to laugh. BR10 is "mostly stable". Occassionally loses license and a few other things. It took them two years to get it to that point and we settle with "mostly stable". There are some blatent issues with it that I know the developers were informed of over a year ago that are still there and haven't been corrected. Their solution? Don't worry about BR10. Go to 11. The true meaning of "out of the frying pan in to the fire". With Acronis we settle for "mostly stable" and "use this work around" because that is as good as it gets with them.
I downloaded the BR11 bootable media from my account today just to see what it was like. It booted with a blank screen and the 1) and 2) choices on the screen with no description of what those choices were. What the heck. I tried #1. I have been using Acronis for about 5 years and was total lost on how and what was trying to restore.
They radically changed the user interface from the Echo series to BR10 and BR10 was a total disaster. "oops they did it again" with BR11. I was kind of hoping that with all the heat they took over BR10 that maybe, just maybe, they would put out a rock solid BR11 and stick with their user interface. I am insane because the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
This is one company that needs to go out of business...
This is the kind of information that should be ON THE BOX, not deep in thread that you don;t find until AFTER you have already purchased the software and experienced these problems!
Hi all
If any users are still experiencing issues please could you ensure you are using the latest version which is ABR11 build 17318, we have had some good feedback on this version so far so would suggest moving go this version if you are still on the initial release.
Here is a copy of the release notes for the latest ABR11 build:
http://www.acronis.com.au/support/updates/changes.html?p=10387
Backup plan naming is back. Let's see how it behaves overall.
I have had the same issues as marcus, including c+runtime error, repeated loss of credentials, and even more disturbingly, now the backups are causing Windows server2000 to crash to BSOD (as near as I can tell, the error seems related to volume shadow copy failing in any mode except disabled). This week, the server crashed to BSOD and would not reboot because the shutdown corrupted Windows. Fortunately a backup had managed to work two days earlier which I was able to restore, but I lost two days of billing and patient appointments which cost me a lot of money. This is the opposite of what a backup program should do. ABR11 has been a nightmare for my business. BR10 was working well with only the occ glitch. I regret the upgrade and I resent the cost of the program and maint. contract since the program has caused us so much trouble. I will be taking a look at other solutions unless this is resolved soon.