Back Logs - 2016
Through 2014, the Backup Log showing results of each Backup was easy to find. But, in 2015 + 2016, that log has either been removed or moved to a different location. Can anyone shed any light on this?
The log was yet another victim of the overhaul. And they are XML, which is not particularly human friendly.
!YUCK! Surely you jest! Talk about user unfriendly!
The logs can be viewed in Notepad so it is a little easier, but save yourself some time and enable the email notification
so the rsults of the backup is sent to your email messages.
Hmmm. I was looking for a worthwhile project to hone my programming skills. Creating a Java-based standalone, interactive log-viewer with the ability to parse/transform XML-files into something human-readable sounds like a worthwhile endevaur. No promises if I can do it, or when.
Hey MiniMax,
If you looking for something worthwhile to do, check out this link.
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/38609#comment-309166
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/38609#comment-309325
The best way to view logs is to enable email notification so the resulting email will easily display the success or failure of the backup.
An example of the email results:
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/67286#comment-309757
Viewing logs only in your email isn't really a solution, at best a workaround and a poor one at that. There are times when the current backup fails because of a problem in the clean up process where old backups are deleted. I do a daily backup of 6 differentials and then a full for a weekly cycle. I keep 6 cycles or 6 weeks. So if I run into a problem I would need to go through 6 weeks of emails. Once I see that a backup was successful, I delete the emails. The UI to review logs in TI 2013 did the job. Way more fluff then was needed, a simply time stasmped list with success or failure indicated would do the job.
Also, about 10% of my emails don't get sent, usually the yahoo email server is responding too slowly and Acronis times out on the email send. When I didn't get a daily email with TI 2013, it was easy to either start the UI or directly read the log file and verify that the backup was successful but email wasn't sent. The UI no longer provides that functionality and the logs are in almost unreadbale XML. So what is the solution for an unsent email?????
Really getting tired of Acronis continual dumbing down the product.
From a flailing "newbie)'s point of view: AGREED!
I don't know about stuff like "dumbing" down - haven't been using this long enough to know any better - but, I most certainly understand things like forcing me to do email, smtp, etc.
I think I'm about to put this on my "too tought to handle pile". I think I made a mistake in choosing Acronis. T'is best I start looking around for something a bit more user-friendly.
The best way to view logs is to enable email notification so the resulting email will easily display the success or failure of the backup.
Well yes, it will show you the success or failure, but that's basically all it will show you. It doesn't contain any detailed data about what was backed up. At least previously the log would show how many files from which directories were included in the backup, now it doesn't even do that.
This is really unacceptable, any decent backup solution should let you see easily which files were backed up and when. They really have dumbed this down way too far.
I don't know about the new version 6027. Version 5634 after running acronis cleanup tool and doing a clean install has been very stable. I manually delete old backups after the next full backup. GroverH recommends creating new backup tasks rather than editing backup tasks and backup tasks should have different names. If you follow these rules you shouldn't need error logs. I never use error logs unless troubleshooting a problem. I've found when you do run into problems a clean install is required or the problem is on Acronis' end.
But I really do like to know that my backups are running OK, instead of assuming that no news is good news. I've had a number of backup products over the years, from desktop to enterprise, that didn't work correctly on occasion. Specifically, I have had Acronis stop working many times over the last few years and I would never have known it if I hadn't checked the logs. It's just software after all.
And yes, I know that the only real test of a backup is to try to restore from it, but that's something that most people don't do every day, whereas everyone should look at their backup logs every day.
If you follow these rules you shouldn't need error logs. I never use error logs unless troubleshooting a problem.
I'm not quite as trusting as you seem to be. Afterall, if nothing goes wrong with my computer I shouldn't ever need to back it up, right?
I simply look at the logs after each backup to make sure all went well. If not, gotta find out why.
The application tells you the status of the last backup. If there is a green checkmark it succeeded. Click on the green checkmark and it will display backup sucessfully completed.
The application tells you the status of the last backup. If there is a green checkmark it succeeded. Click on the green checkmark and it will display backup sucessfully completed.
And, is there a red checkmark to tell me it didn't? Upon seeing a red checkmark, where do I go to find out what happened?
The error logs aren't much help. I would try running the backup again and watch for errors. The problem is either a connection issue or corrupted data. After troubleshooting if the problem still isn't fixed. A clean install will usually do the trick.
I just want to know what it backed up, so that I can see whether it's doing what I expect, or maybe if I need to add something to the backup, etc. Is that too much to ask?
I worked in the enterprise backup space for years so maybe I have high expectations, but seriously--this is really amateurish.
I've been using TI 2013 for over 2 years now with auto cleanup. And yes there have been times the auto cleanup didn't work and then i started a new task. When a backup fails, I need to be notified and that notification should give me some idea of what the problem was. With TI 2015 I've only been able to get a single full backup. After that all differntials fail. And there's no log file to tell me what's wrong. My backup is scheduled to run at 2:00 AM, so am I expected to get up then to observe if something went wrong.
Support didn't want to answer any questions about 2015 even though it is a supported product. So I switched to 2016. With 2016, email fails with unknown error. Acronis removed the sending user/password fields and I think this is what is causing the problems. My email provider needs this info to avoid email spoofing. So still unable to get a log file.
I think it's worthwhile to point out that these are not features we want to add to the product. These are features that were in the product and then were removed.
Peter and Thomas have some reasonable expectations of a backup product. Something that Acronis used to be.
Unfortunately we don't have any control over how the software is written. We can only provide feedback during beta testing and use this forum to make the software the most useable experience possible. I've been a long time user of this software and its local and cloud backup still provide the best experience I've found. How many other software products do you know of that can provide a bare metal backup to the cloud and restore a bare metal backup to different hardware?
Gosh, I guess I opened a can of worms here. Never in my wildest dreams did I think my simple question of "where did you move it to?" would open pandora's box. It never occured to me that Acronis would simply delete such a valuable (to me) tool leaving it up to the user to figure out a contorted scheme that *might* work from time to time.
It's kinda like buying a Cadillac, putting it through the carwash and having it come out as Model-A at the other end.
C'mon Acronis, just because you weren't getting songs of praise for giving us that wonderful log doesn't mean it wasn't being used! (apparently rather heavily). And, that silence meant you could just blithley remove it? Did you even bother to ask if it was being used and, if so, how it was being used?!?! !Then! re-program accordingly!?
Ah well, even the MS Backup is starting to look good about now (gasp).
btw - on a different note. I DO love this Forum's CAPTCHA!! I have poor vision (at best) that includes double-vision. Those blasted "masked" CAPTCHA's drive me NUTS!
I really liked the ability to see the red and green ticks on all tasks in a nice viewable format. If a task failed you could easily select it and find out what went wrong. This is a terrible downgrade - I am really sorry I paid money for an 'upgrade'. I am going to uninstall 2016 and reinstall 2010. Unfortunately I suspect it won't work with windows 10 but then I'l have to find another product with a decent interface.
I have been an Acronis user since version 7.0 and they have just destroyed it. Such a shame.
I'm not interested in doing full system image backups to the cloud but as far as local backups go, and restore to anything, including bare metal, I have found that Macrium Reflect is far superior to the current version of TI. I had been a TI user for many years. Unfortunately, the dumbing down of the interface, the removal of key functions, and features/functions that should, but don't work, forced me to look for alternatives. Honestly, I'm happy I did.
So to answer your question, with the exception of cloud (I use Carbonite to provide continuous cloud backup of my user files) I can name at least one product that does bare metal backup and restore to different hardware, has MUCH better performance, and simply works. Honestly, looking back on it I can't believe I even put up with some of the nonsense that TI forces users to put up with. Want to change certain settings on your backup, oh you have to completely delete the backup definition and start all over.... seriously, I can't believe I ever even put up with that. With Macrium Reflect you can edit your backup settings at will, and it works perfectly. Sorry to say but going from TI to Macrium was like going from software written by amateurs to software written by professionals.
I had 2012 and bought 2016 last week.
It's been absolutely terrible. What have they done? 90% of the product is geared toward the "Cloud" crap I absolutely don't want, the incremental backups don't work, performance is much worse, it doesn't respect the exclusions, and I can't view the logs without digging through to the actual files.
This is amazingly bad.
"90% of the product is geared toward the "Cloud" crap I absolutely don't want"
SAME HERE! Never have, never will!
All I want is the logs back (without having to kludge them). GEEEZ!
Is TI2016 the new Windows 8? Screw your installed base.
I'm going back to TI 2013. Works a lot better then TI2106. I've been using it okay on Windows 10, only reason I looked at TI 2016 was because I had problem backing up to a network share with IT 2013. Same issue with TI 2016. Workaround is to use a IP address of server, not network shares. means you need to hard code IP address of server and DNS.
After briefly using TI 2016, found these problems.
The ability to include @task run number@ in the file name. this allowed a sort by file name to be in chronological order even when full, diif, or incr was part of the file name.
No longer able to access the logfile via TI 2016.
Documentation indicates I have the option to indicate where the system report is saved. This isn't true, I had to search to find where the report was saved.
Email notifications to gmail indicate Acronis is an insecure app. Requires lowering gmail security in order to receive TI notifications.
Unless Acronis restores the feature in what used to be a good product, they wouldn't get another dime from me. Other users have switched to MacriumReflect, that's what I'll take a look at.
I agree the logs are not easy to get or read. It was nice when you could browse to see the list of backup, errors, etc. Now we have to keep emails to show any history.
Can Acronis bring back the log viewing with a patch?
So the Acronis tech support contacted me. Once he finally understood what I wanted he informed me that they had changed the interface for windows 10 and that feature was no longer available - well I already knew that ! He told me to download the latest version 6027 - which I may already have , no way to tell , no mention of a release number as far as I can see, nothing under 'about' - because when I installed it , the only option was to 'repair' . I did that and I see nothing different. Sure the latest backup has a green tick but nothing for previous backups. I know mostly it worked as they are on the disk but hard to tell for sure.
Shortly after this I found my data disk was full somehow and discovered that this 2016 trueimage had decided to resurect an old backup script sitting on the disk from another older computer and run it every day , backing up my C drive to the data disk ( not where I now backup to) and so filled it up. This release is really messed up.
The inability to look at logs via the user interface is abysmal. Yet another problem with this new 2016 version with it's unintuitive and crippled interface (previous versions weren't great either, but this is worse). I also agree that taking away the variables from the file name is a mistake.
I've used TrueImage for approx. 10 years and have lived with continual glitches, glaring omissions (e.g. why can't the log state how much disk space is remaining after the backup?), and workarounds. Maybe it's time for a change. I'd really like to find a solid product that does compressed disk images (full and incremental) on a schedule. That's the guts of what I need. Of course it also has to have some other basics such as boot from CD/USB, save backups to a network location, etc. Is there another solid product out there?
Macrium Reflect. I was a long time Acronis user and finally got fed up. The only regret I have is not making the switch to MR sooner. It is a superior product in every respect.
Macrium Reflect. I was a long time Acronis user and finally got fed up. The only regret I have is not making the switch to MR sooner. It is a superior product in every respect.
Wags, to each their own and I'm glad that Macrium is meeting your needs. I have no issue with anyone suggesting another backup product - especially if it is working for them and can help others. I, like you, am just a forum user and consumer. I get a few perks for providing my time and knowledge, but I try to tell it how it is so that people can make an informed decision. I do take issue with siding with one product over another and advising people to switch without providing more research and impartial information.
“It is superior in every aspect” is a pretty bold statement. I have used, and still use, numerous backup applications (Acronis, Macrium, Retrospect, Ghost, Windows Backup, OS X Recovery Images/Time Machine, CrashPlan, etc. etc. etc.) I can tell you from experience, none of them are perfect. It's not a matter of if, but when your backup application will run into a problem and they all offer different styles of creating and managing products, and their own unique features as well. Although I do have a handful of backup products that I personally prefer, Acronis has always been my go-to for the basic functionality of offline backup and recovery (especially with dissimilar hardware restoration) which has been rock solid throughout every version change along the way. Is Acronis perfect - not by a long shot, but it does get a lot right and the basics still can’t be beat for reliability.
Acronis does seem to be driven toward the Cloud features. Many will appreciate this, some will not care at all. However, the fact that Acronis is offering this feature (and a lot of storage space to go with it), is a choice that Acronis at least provides. If you’re not interested in the Cloud, they are not forcing you to use it. If, having to click past that initial prompt to sign into the Cloud is a deal breaker - well, there's not much I can say - that's a personal preference, but not one I’d base my backup and recovery on. Microsoft took the PC hard line for several years and it looked like they were headed for disaster - now they are rallying with Windows 10 and trying to snatch up Cloud services left and right to integrate with their products. I think Acronis is taking a similar approach and looking to expanding its product features for what consumers will eventually be more inclined to use in the future as Cloud services become more an more integrated into our consumer devices. This is all personal debate, but I wanted to put my two cents in.
As you are a new Macrium user, please be aware of the "grass is always greener" analogy. I have used (and sometime still do) use Macrium. For the basics of backup and recovery, it does work well in many cases. The free version of it will suit many people's needs, but it does have several limitations in the free version that will not become available unless you purchase the product (no incrementals unless you pay, no dissimilar hardware recovery unless you pay, no ability to encrypt backups unless you pay, etc.). Again, the basics may be just fine for some, but for many, they are still too basic and would require purchasing a license to unlock the advanced features.
Also, Macrium is not without its own technical issues. They have a forum just like this one and there are many people there having issues with that product too. Many of the same type of issues you see in this forum are also posted there. I'm not going to post the links directly in an Acronis forum, but if you look there right now, these are some of the most recent posts:
- Back up to new drive failing
- Error when replacing boot disk from image
- Error when cloning: Read Failed- 22 - Broken pipe
- does not recognise drive
Very long story short... again, I'm glad you have found a product that is meeting your needs and I hope it serves you well. I just want to provide information to others, that despite current Acronis shortfalls with their products, Macrium, nor any other backup solution is "perfect" either.
Well said Bobbo_3C0X1. I need and use bare metal cloud backup. I think Acronis is the only provider of such a service. It works well and has truely unlimited storage. My upload and download times are very good. I'm willing to live with having to do a clean install every now and then.
Certainly fair comments and MR certainly isn't perfect, but then I didn't say that. I also did not say it was superior in every way to ALL other backup solutions. However, for my requirements and IMHO, MR is far superior to the current version of Acronis. If you search for my posts you will find that I have provided specific details here in the past. I will repeat just 2, there are many others. First performance. I ran both Acronis and MR in exactly the same environment and performance was an order of magnitude better with MR. Second, anytime I needed to make even minor changes to my backup definitions with Acronis I had to basically delete the entire definition and start from scratch or it simply did not work correctly. Your own folks here in the forum agree that that is the only way to ensure that it will work correctly. As someone who has spent 36 years in the technology industry, mostly in software, that is simply not acceptable. I have made numerous tweaks and changes to my backup definitions with MR without a single problem. So yes, in my case, for my requirements, MR is a far superior product to Acronis. That is simply my opinion...YMMV! Just as a point of reference I have been using the paid version of MR for over 3 months now with no problems. Trying to get Acronis to work was like having a hobby....MR just works without all the fuss.
Certainly fair comments and MR certainly isn't perfect, but then I didn't say that. I also did not say it was superior in every way to ALL other backup solutions. However, for my requirements and IMHO, MR is far superior to the current version of Acronis. If you search for my posts you will find that I have provided specific details here in the past. I will repeat just 2, there are many others. First performance. I ran both Acronis and MR in exactly the same environment and performance was an order of magnitude better with MR. Second, anytime I needed to make even minor changes to my backup definitions with Acronis I had to basically delete the entire definition and start from scratch or it simply did not work correctly. Your own folks here in the forum agree that that is the only way to ensure that it will work correctly. As someone who has spent 36 years in the technology industry, mostly in software, that is simply not acceptable. I have made numerous tweaks and changes to my backup definitions with MR without a single problem. So yes, in my case, for my requirements, MR is a far superior product to Acronis. That is simply my opinion...YMMV! Just as a point of reference I have been using the paid version of MR for over 3 months now with no problems. Trying to get Acronis to work was like having a hobby....MR just works without all the fuss.
If Macrium works better for you, I truly am glad and I respect your opinions based upon your unique needs and setup.
I find the opposite to be true in my setup for speed and compression as ATIH is the clear winner. I wanted to compare for myself so I did as close to an exact backup scenario as possible. Granted this was only 1 test and both were taken with Windows running, but Acronis won in both speed and compression. I have attached screenshots and logs of both.
I agree that the Macrium interface is currently more polished in areas... better logging and results output for sure. I do hope Acronis brings this back in future updates as it was in 2014 and before.
I also agree that the Windows Interface of ATIH can be finicky and it is indeed often recommended to not change backup tasks once they are configured. It's a recommendation, but not a requirement. I have had success making minor changes like schedule updates, exclusions, etc. However, to prevent unnecessary grief, I do avoid modifying just because it has hopefully prevented issues. I believe it has gotten better in v6027 and I hope stability improvements continue in newer releases.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Setup: Full disk Image backup (all partitions)
Backup software is running with Windows booted, no other open files or applications, however, background apps are running. The purpose is to test 2 different backup applications in the exact same environment. The same hardware, equipment, setup and configurations were used for both tests.
Source: Samsung 850 EVO 250GB (used space 72.3GB) – internal SATA 3.0 motherboard connection. This is the disk with the booted Windows Environment (Win 10 x64 Pro version 1511, build 10586.104)
Destination: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB (used space 0GB) – Non powered USB 3.0 to SATA adapter (same adapter/same port for all tests – Startech USB352SAT3CB)
Compression: Standard
Backup File Size Splitting: Custom 4GB
Encryption: None
Priority: High
ATIH Results (2016 v6027):
Completion time: 219 seconds = 3M:39S (Winner)
Output size: 42.7GB (Winner)
Macrium Reflect Free Results (6.1 build 1081):
Completion time: 263 seconds = 4M:23S (Loser)
Output size: 43.9GB (Loser)
Not sure what your trying to prove with the speed test when True Image is set to its highest priority setting and Macrium Reflect isn't set to its highest.
Joey,
Thanks for the catch. I quickly ran this last night before heading to bed, but that is why I posted screenshots so that my configurations were transparent.
My point is that Macrium performance is not leaps and bounds better than Acronis in regards to general speed and compression of backups. I'm not saying not to use it, I say use what works best for you. However, Macrium keeps popping up as the recomendation by disgrunted forum users and they often say that it is superior and much faster.
I am trying to show that is not the case with actual results and not just comments. If nothing else, they are nearly the same in speed and compression. Everyone's setup will be different and perhaps network performance may be part of the difference. However, networking aside, under same physical connections for the source and destination, there really is little difference. I'm sure Macrium will win some times in either compression and/or speed, but so will Acronis.
I will try to get another test win Windows and offline with both applications using highest settings and report the results later tonight.
Macrium Reflect. I was a long time Acronis user and finally got fed up. The only regret I have is not making the switch to MR sooner. It is a superior product in every respect.
Not sure what your trying to prove with the speed test when True Image is set to its highest priority setting and Macrium Reflect isn't set to its highest.
These are my new results - I believe I got all of the settings correct this time between the two applications. This was done just to show that neither application is superior to the other in the basics of speed and compression. Ultimately, each person will decide what product they prefer for whatever reason: speed, compression, price, interface, reliability, unique features, extra functionality such as cloud storage, etc. etc. etc.
I wanted to show measurable peformance differences between the two products because of generlaized statements, usually by someone who has had a bad experience with ATIH and completely disregards it for a new product that they personally like better. I believe that you should use what you like best and what meets your needs - no backup product is perfect though.
I'm sure that results would differ between system setups and configurations so take this with a grain of salt. In the grand scheme of things, all of the tests we're fairly close in with compression output size. For the most part, speed wasn't that far off eiher. Acronis seemed to edge out Macrium in most instances by just a little bit though. And, for whatever reason, using the Macrium bootable recovery media was consistently slower by a lot - nearly 13 minutes longer than even the same version of Macrium running with the same settings while booted into full Windows. I am guessing the Macrium WinPE environment somehow defaulted to USB 2.0 whereas Acronis WinPE was able to load the necessary usb 3.0 drivers. This might be unique on the ASUS T200, I will have to try with another system as well to be sure.
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SETUP:
System: ASUS T200 - Intel Z3795 (1.60GHz) 4xGB Memory, 64GB eMMC flash hard drive
OS: Win 10 x64 Education
Hard Drive: 64GB eMMC flash - 18.8GB used / 38.7GB free
All backups were written to a blank (formatted each time) Samsung 840 Evo (250GB) via the same USB 3.0 connector on the ASUS T200 and the same SATA USB 3.0 adapter. All backups were full disk images with all selectable partitions, no encryption, no exclusions, default compression, highest priority, fixed file size of 4GB for backups.
--------------------------------------------------------------
RESULTS:
01) Ran 2 backups with ATIH 2016 v6027 WinPE bootable offline media and Windows 10 x64ADK bootable offline media
Test 1:
Completion Time: 2 min 56 sec
Image size: 11.7GB
Test 2:
Completion Time: 2 min 55 sec
Image size: 11.7GB
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02) Ran 2 backups with Macrium Reflect Free WinPE created with 6.1 version 1081 and Windows 10 x64 ADK bootable offline media
Test 1:
Completion Time: 16 min 57 sec
Image size: 12.6GB
Test 2:
Completion Time: 17 min 8 sec
Image size: 12.6GB
--------------------------------------------------------------
03) Ran 1 backup with Windows launched using Windows version of ATIH 2016 v6024
Test 1:
Completion Time: 3 min 49 sec
Image size: 12.9GB
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04) Ran 1 backup with Windows launched using Windows version of Macrium Reflect Free 6.1 v1081
Test 1:
Completion Time: 5 min 27 sec
Image size: 12.2 GB
--------------------------------------------------------------
Don't really have a dog in this hunt as I'm not trying to convince anybody either way, just providing a data point...and I keep getting the emails about this thread : - ) Anyway, I don't have screen shots and I'm not going to spend a bunch of time including all my details, and I don't have ATI anymore so I can't go back and run any of this again so for what it's worth. My experince was that using the exact same hardware and backing up to my NAS (Synology) my backups went from roughly 1 hour and 45 minutes for a full backup using ATI to roughly 40 minutes with MR and from 40 minutes or so for incrementals to about a minute. As for booting into and running the recovery environment, ATI was NEVER able to produce a USB boot drive that worked. This was after many hours of work and the (excelent I might add) assistance from the experts here in these forums (zero help I will also add from the ATI folks themselves). That is another area, IMHO, that is far superior with MR. Not only did their product completely guide me thru the process of creating a working USB boot drive but it was totally menu driven and actually worked. Integration with Windoes itself is another area in which, for me at least, MR is a far superior product. It's integration worked perfectly right out of the box, including the fact that upon boot I have a selection to bring up the MR recovery mode without having to even use a USB recovery drive. That and the integreation into the windows menu system NEVER worked in ATI. It is another item. among others, that is decribed in the ATI user manula but actually does not work, or worse, was never really implemented (those two facts were finally admited to me by ATI after working on a problem with them).
Sorry but I'm going to shut off emails notifications for this thread now. Ever since I switched to MR I don't really spend time working on or worrying about my backup system anymore as it just works so it no longer has to be a "hobby".
Bobbo_3X0C1,
If the Macrium Reflect resuce media builder finds a more compatible driver than the one natively included in the base winpe.wim on your system it is copied to the rescue media. It sounds like the copied driver either isn't loading properly or doesn't work correctly in the WinPE environment.
If your interested in troubleshooting this, check the rescuepe.log located at the root of the system drive you imaged for errors. If you created the USB rescue media, check the Drivers folder at the root of the USB drive to see which drivers were copied from your system. I think deleting this folder from the USB drive will result in the use of the native WinPE drivers.
Thanks Joey, I'll test it out. Just goes to show that even other competitive products have some issues to sort out as well, which is where I was headed when I first responded.