Hi William, do you have v6559 or 6569 installed? Please make sure 6569 is the one in use.  They both came out within days of each other and v6559 was getting blocked by some AV programs during install (at least partially).  I use Windows Security Essentials/defender and MBAM and did not have trouble during either upgrade, but there were several others flagging it as a false positive and preventing it from completing.  If not on 6569, upgrade to it (I'd recommend downloading directly from your online account and not upgrading through the app.  That way, you can right click on the installer and"run as administrator" to give it the highest insallation control as well".

As for the Cloud - there is a free 30 day trial that will automatically activate on your account if you log into the Acronis app with your online account.  If you do nothing after 30 days (if you log in) the trial will just expire and the app will go back to the stand-a-lone version.  There's no requirement to use the trial either.  

Hello William,

Thank you for the information and the log file.  Which folder was the log file found in and have you changed the name at all?  I have looked on my system and don't see any logs that use the same name format?

I would suggest looking in your C:\ProgramData\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Scripts folder and look at what is configured in the task script for your backup task that looks to be trying to go to the Acronis Cloud.

I would also recommend downloading a copy of the Log File Viewer App from the forum and use this to check for the other log files that are generated for backup tasks, especially service logs.

Did this task ever work correctly before the upgrade to the latest build 6569 version?

If no obvious answer can be found to this problem, I would suggest performing a clean install of the 6569 version to ensure that everything is installed correctly, then create your backup task again.

Hi Bobbo,

Since ATI was auto upgraded yesterday, both ATI on my win 10 macine (the one that is failing) and on my win 7 machine are at v6569.

I use Avira (firewall turned off) for my anti-maware and the standalone Comodo Firewall for both my firewall & rogue process detection. I had thought they might have been a cause of the problem, but didn't know which files to add as exceptions, so I shotgunned it and included anything that looked like it would be a problem if blocked. Even so, I know this was not happening because Avira will pop a window and ask me what to do. Never did. 

Also I run the same revision levels of Avira and Comodo on both machines and both can be very vocal about things that don't smell right. The Comodo rogue process detection is especially so. I would have expected something to pop had either detected anything even a little off. Neither did. 

If you should know what files I should include as exceptions, then it could be very helpful if you could send a list to me.

I deliberately do not choose the cloud when installing ATI on any machine, so I never signed up. I have large amounts of data to back up (about 372 GB just on my Win 7 machine) so using the WD USB HDs is defintely a cheaper solution.

Also, as a standard practice now, I partition single HD machines into a System Partition and a Data partition. The result is the smallest possible System Partition footprint since all data is stored on the Data Partition. Set up this way, the Win 10 partition weighs in at about 91 GB.

Thanks for the info.

Bill

Hi Steve,

You and me both on the log files; I've never have seen anything like it. I have 5 total that look much the same since I tried 5 times to get the car rolling.

Good advice on the scripts files, I'll do that. I'll get back to you on that.

Didn't really see a need for the File Log Viewer App. What I did was to associate my text editor app (notebook++) to open any *.log file when I click on it, so I can quickly review multiple log files. Good enough.

Actually I started with v6569 today on my Win 10 machine (although I installed an older version a ways back, the auto update took care of that) , so no ambiguity there. All I wanted to do today was a System Partition backup;, the rest I'll take care of later.

As for a clean install, that's pretty close to what I was thinking already, but nothing like another voice to firm up that decision.

Thanks for the suggestions

Bill

Hi William,  just in case:

36429: Acronis Software: Exclude Program Folders and Executables from Security Programs

I believe the 30 day trial to cloud is available for any new purchases with the 2016 stand a lone version as well.  If you have signed into the application with your online account, it could trigger the clould trial automatically - just a guess/possibility.

As Steve mentioned, check to see what scripts you have listed in your programdata folder.  I would then compare it to what Acronis shows with the schedulemanger utility.  I've found that sometimes, what acronis thinks are scripts in the schedulemanager are not ones that actually exist in the scripts folder anymore and I manually use the schedulemanager to delete those.  Alternatively, you can run taskzap in this tool and it will get rid of all your existing scripts and/or ghost scripts and then you'd need to recreate them but should hopefully resolve the issue.

William, as this was an auto update from within the ATIH GUI and it looks to have not gone successfully, I would again suggest performing a clean install on your problem system.

I have successfully upgraded ATIH 2016 on systems running the full Comodo Internet Security suite along with Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit.  In terms of whitelisting ATIH with your Avira antivirus, you should whitelist
C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Acronis
C:\ProgramData\Acronis

Perform a clean install of ATIH 2016

First uninstall the program via the Control Panel (or use an uninstaller such as Revo).

Run the Acronis Cleanup Tool (link in my signature below), then restart the computer.
Note: The KB document for the Cleanup Tool refers to checking for entries in the Windows registry - I have ignored this step on the occasions I have used it with no detriment, though if making changes to the registry, I stronly advise either exporting the registry before the change(s), or create a System Restore point, or image the drive for protection.

Reinstall the ATIH software (download a fresh copy from your Acronis Account if needed or if you don't have the latest build version installer).  Run the install as an Administrator (right-click on the installer to take this option).

Note 1: The cleanup tool will remove all your backup tasks and task history.  If you want to protect this information, then open C:\ProgramData\Acronis\TrueImageHome\ in Windows Explorer - this may be hidden on some systems - if so, go to the Folder option in the View pane and enable hidden files & folders).

Save a copy of the Database and Scripts folders to another location to restore back later.

Note 2: In order to restore the above folders & contents, you must stop all Acronis Services & Programs else you will encounter locked files in the Database folder.

Hi Steve,

Attached is the task script file in question. I had to fake it by appending an extension(.txt) acceptable to the uploader, so just strip it off to get the real file name.

The relevant line looks to be line 22 where the destination location is correctly defined and is what I specified as the destination in the ATI configuration UI.

To wit:

uri="F:\Inspiron 3847 System Partition\@task@.tib" volume_id="0"

Can't claim to be an expert at looking at ATI task scripts, so feel free to comment.

Thanks,

Bill

Bill, the task script looks normal to me with just one question mark - are you selecting to do a sector by sector backup?

<disk_source has_asz_backup="false" sector_by_sector_backup="true" sector_by_sector_backup_unallocated="false">

Other than that ? there is nothing that suggests a backup to the Cloud.

I would again recommend the clean install to ensure that the Acronis Database and all programs etc are good.

Hi Steve,

The proponderance of what I've seen plus the discussions here on the forum lead me to doing a clean install of ATIH v6569.

As you suggested I downloaded it from my Acronis account where the install file name clearly indicated it was v6569.

I've used Revo for quite a long time, but several years ago concluded the free version wasn't doing a very thorough job, so now I use Revo Pro. Historically it has performed very well including removing keys from the registry. So I did the unistall with Revo Pro and, other then the registry, checked all places for leftover detritus from the uninstall. Revo Pro removed *everything*, so I could find no reason to use the cleanup tool.

My standard practice is to install all new software from the indigenous Administrator account which is what I did. There was no need to save the Database or Scripts since I am configuring only one backup task, fairly easy and quick to do.

I confured a System Partition backup task and it ran perfectly.

-----

However, one cery perplexing anomaly came up with no plausible explanation.

On the Win 10 machine, ATIH reported backing 97.8 GB to the system Partition. Windows reports the System Partition (C:) as using as using 86 GB. The othe 2 partitions being backed up are hidden. The actual full backup file size was 203 GB.

On the Win 7 machine, ATIH reported backing up 145.7 GB to the System Partition. Windows reports the System Partition (C:) as using as using 132 GB. The othe 3 partitions being backed up are hidden. The actual full backup file size was 97 GB.

Whereas the Win 7 numbers look reasonably consistent, the Win 10 numbers don't. Very strange as I use exactly the same ATIH configurations for System Partition backups on both machines.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Bill

Hi Steve,

Yes, I select the sector by sector backup.

Did a clean install as reported in another reply to you.

Thanks,

Bill

Bill, if you are doing a sector by sector backup then the used and free space sizes indicated in Windows are not relevant as you are essentially telling Acronis to backup the whole hard drive or partition regardless of whether sectors are used or not.

The only time when I choose sector by sector is when I am using Acronis rescue media to backup a non Windows file system from my Ubuntu Linux computer which uses EXT3 filesystem, otherwise I never use this method.

Hi Steve,

Thanks for pointing out the characteristics of selecting sector by sector.

I deleted the first and only System Partition backup and deselected sector by sector in the ATIH configuration. Then I re-ran the System Partiion backup.

Voila. The backup file size decreased from 203 GB, almost exactly the size of the logical C: partition on the HD, to about 65 GB.

But.....

If you look at the numbers I sent you in a prior message, I included them for both my Win 10 machine and my Win 7 machine.

Both machines have a single 2 TB HD and both I partioned into 2 logical drives approximately sized the same on both machines; that is one 200 GB partion for C: (the system partition) and one 1,800 GB data partition. On both macines I configured the ATIH System Partition backup identically including selecting sector by sector.

But whereas the first System Partition backup (~ 203 GB file size) on the Win 7 machine was indeed of the entire logical C: drive as you noted (and as the manual notes also), the System Partition backup was not the entire logical C: partition on the Win 7 machine. The full System Partition backup file size on the Win 7 machine is now ~ 93 GB, whereas the logical C: partition is ~ 195 GB.

In all the years I been using ATIH, I've never seen it work differently than on the Win 7 machine. I started with ATIH 11 and have upgraded every year or two since. When the sector by sector selection became available or was always there I have no idea. So I was surprised when the Win 7 installation of ATIH worked differently than the installtion on the Win 7 machine which has a fair ammount of mileage on it.

None the less, I deselected sector by sector on both machines.

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks,

Bill

Bill, glad to hear that you have your backup sizes more in line with expectations after deselecting sector by sector in the backup task options.

It is difficult to give any precise reason why your two machines operated differently without doing an indepth analysis of exactly how they were each configured, checking all options that might be selected, understanding the compression ratios that can be achieved based on the mix of different file types involved etc...

If you want to look at this further, then I would suggest looking at a couple of the service_ logs from each computer, one from before any changes triggered you to post this problem to the forums, and a current log with the behaviour you see today.  Look closely at each of the lines in the log file to see exactly what options were specified in the task configuration and compare these to see if there were any significant differences.

The Log File Viewer app from this forum can help in this respect, as it offers a Short Format view of the log contents which takes out a lot of the extra XML markers and renders the Service logs more easily readable.