Pause scheduled backup tasks
I use Acronis True Image 2016 (Build 6571) and want to pause scheduled backups for a limited amount of time.
The problem is as follows:
I run True Image on my Laptop which does daily Backups to a NAS in my local network.
When I am not at home the Backup fails (of course) and shows me corresponding pop-ups (backup failed). That is no problem, when I am away from home for just one day. The problem is: When im gone for more than a few days, these pop-ups are beginning to become nerve-wrecking. They show when it fails and since Acronis retries the backup after a new start when it missed one (a feature which I want and use for when I am at home), they show even more often. A simple solution would be to just pause the backup schedule. I dont want to delete the complete schedule/tasks every time I leave home for a week just to reconfigure them after I come back.
Is there a solution?
(I use the Acronis Scheduler Manager for deleting faulty tasks (zap) from time to time. Maybe one could write a script to save a task, delete it and reinsert it after runnig the script again?)
Not that I'm aware of. I think it only works when the NAS is the backup source. You might be able to start and stop the Acronis scheduler service using Windows Scheduled Tasks based upon Windows Systems EVENT ID's if the connected network is not the one you nomrally connect to at home. Seems do-able though, but outside the scope of the Acronis product.
http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATI2016/#7941.html
- If you want to regularly back up data located on a removable media (for example USB flash drive) or remote storage (for example network folder or NAS), we recommend that you select the Run when the current source device is attached check box. This is useful because an external storage device may be often unavailable at the scheduled moment of backup. In that case, if the check box is selected, the missed backup operation will start when the device is connected or attached.
This is exactly what I need. Thanks @Steve.
Sadly your pdf-Link is a 404 but I found the same file on the forum: https://forum.acronis.com/system/files/forum/2016/06/121105/pre-post_commands.pdf
Glad to have helped. I was able to open the PDF in my Chrome browser and download it by right-click > save as without hitting a 404 error?
No, that doesn't work (for me) either. But as mentioned before, I found the exact same pdf (as linked by in my previous comment) in another forum post. So it's alright. Thanks again.
Just FYI - I'm able to see the .pdf in both thinks using Chrome.
I think I found the error: For some reason Steves first link has an added "de/" in the middle (for me):
https://forum.acronis.com/de/system/files/forum/2016/09/126583/pre-post_commands.pdf
When I remove the "de/" (for the german language) the link works as well. Maybe an error in the forum-software when I visit the localized forum?
But since my question got answered everything is ok :-)
Thanks for the feedback, I have reported this via the MVP private forum as another forum issue to be resolved.
I finally had the chance to try the solution you described in the pdf… and it didn't work: It recognized the script to be "successful" even when the Powershell test-path command returned "False".
I then wrote a simple .cmd file with just "ping WRONG_NASNAME -n 1"… True Image still said that the execution succeeded even though it exited with an errorcode because I misspelled the name of my NAS on purpose.
Then I renamed the script from script.cmd to script.bat and suddenly True Image recognized the result correctly: "ping WRONG_NASNAME -n 1" as a failed command and "ping NASNAME -n 1" as a successful command.
The solution which worked for me was a simple bat-file with "ping NASNAME -n 1" which succeeds when I'm in my local network and my NAS is reachable and fails if I'm outside my local network.
(btw: I couldn't get your powershell-script to run with the cmd-to-bat trick… only my bat one-liner worked)
Just a quick update - something has changed since I wrote my original Pre-commands document and I too cannot get the Powershell script to correctly return the correct error code to ATIH to show a failed connection, even though this works fine when run interactively etc.
I have created a further document, attached, to show how to use a simple Ping command including how the results of this are shown in the log files.
Ok, good to know that it wasn't an error on my PC.
Your improvement on my solution with the ping command seems very good. Thank you.