Acronis TI 2021 will not backup, queues all scheduled backups
I have been with Acronis almost since inception - currently have a True Image 2021 Perpetual licence from an upgrade. A few days ago all scheduled backups stopped and are labelled as "Queued". Trying to get Technical Support I find that my licence is labeled "Renewal Date: 31 December 2021" and "Support has expired: 2021-12-31" . I wondered if this was the cause but according to "68375: Licensing change FAQ: Acronis products switch to subscription-only licenses" it should keep working.
I have tried to "Stop" all the Queued backups and ask for Backup Now - it labelled it "Queued" again. Then I tried to let a backup start per schedule with the same result. On the program the Activity tab last lists the validation of the last backup.The Recovery tab will load the Backup Content provided the “Queued” has been stopped otherwise reports “another activity”. I seems the scheduler works but the backup program will not start. BTW W10 event viewer logs seem no help
I am considering running "Modify" or re-installing, but I would appreciate any advice, if anyone has struck this before.
Going down the rabbit hole of Acronis help files re the loss of support I suspect this has something to do with Lifetime Cycles though I can see no definite Life Cycle Limit to the True image 2021. If so 2021 seems to have had a rather short life cycle. I found I can buy support per incident. It also appears for any future significant upgrades I will have to buy an yearly subscription. Is this right that support is finished for TI 2021?
Steve Smith wrote:[snip]Download a copy of the Acronis Scheduler Manager tool (link in my signature). This is a stand-alone tool that doesn't need to be installed!
Run the schedmgr.exe as Administrator which will open a black command prompt type window.
Type the command: task zap then press enter, and it will clear all scheduled tasks from the system, leaving all your backup tasks as not scheduled. This should resolve this problem but you may need to do a restart of Windows to complete the action is the Acronis Scheduler has already gotten to a state of believing there is an active task.
I'd like to bring up a point about task zap as it is often recommended. This removes scheduling from all tasks and in many cases may be overkill. If there are a lot of scheduled tasks it means you may need to go back and rescheduled a bunch of stuff when it's only one task that is a problem.
First, one could just try to deschedule the task via the Acronis UI to see if that can help.
With the Scheduler Manager, one can select the task and then just delete the one, e.g. with the commands...
task 1-50
task delete
You need to know the task number, but that's very easy via the MVP Assistant. Use the Acronis Configuration section which will show each backup task and the number within the Scheduler Manager (but you need to have the Scheduler Manager on the system... use the Settings page). The MVP Assistant should be run as an administrator and then it can be used to start the Scheduler Manager as admin too.
Another option may be to simply disable the task within the Scheduler Manager, e.g.
task 1-50
set enabled=off
With this method, you can keep all the scheduling information but simply disable it from scheduling. Of course you can easily enable it too.
Just some alternatives.
Thank you Steve and Bruno, I have followed your advice and solved the problem. You have also helped me understand a bit more how Acronis works and pointed me to some very useful utilities.
To explain what happened after reading your comments I thought I would try the MVP assistant feeling a little uncertain how much the ZAP command would remove. I found I could not get the MVP assistant until I got permission for access – I have applied for that and will get it when I can. I think it may be useful to learn more of its features.
I then used the GUI to de-schedule each file and trying to see if I could start a backup after each: I got again Queued each time and finally ended with all tasks not scheduled and still not working. I then rebooted and backing up came back to normal.
It may be of interest that just before I read your comments, I did a search with DuckDuckGo as “acronis true image 2021 stopped with backups queued” and got a link to Acronis support
https://kb.acronis.com/content/61978
"61978: Acronis True Image: Backup is shown as "Queued" when no other backups are running"
Oddly I could not find this doing similar searches in Acronis Support the day before. I put this aside as it looked complicated and followed your advice with success.
Again , thanks for your help.
Apologies I seem to have clicked something wrong - I intended to mark both as solutions. Maybe the Moderator will fix it and I will read the guidelines for advice how to do that.
GeorgeP wrote:...
I found I could not get the MVP assistant until I got permission for access – I have applied for that and will get it when I can. I think it may be useful to learn more of its features.
George, what link did you use to get the MVP Assistant. I don't know what permission you would need. The link in my signature below will get you to the forum topic which has a link to my latest version which can be downloaded off Google drive.
Good question BrunoC, I was wondering that myself?
Thank you Bruno I have downloaded the zip file from your link. Last time I clicked on " MVP User and Tutorials" on the R side which opens a Google Drive page: