TI 2016 Cloud - My story of an endless desaster...

To whom it may concern,

ever since 2008 I have been using TrueImage to secure my data. Honestly, I was never really satisfied but over the years I learned how to deal with all those little flaws in the software...

So I made my way from TI 11 to TI2010, TI2011, TI2012 and to TI2014. Always in strong belief that the next upgrade would finally solve the existing problems and always being disappointed over and over again...

Finally (and to be honset, today I have NO idea why) I decided to upgrade to TI2016 Cloud.

Two major reasons drove this move:

• Infinite Cloud storage, finally making it possible to completely backup to a remote location.
• The ability to Backup to a local FTP-Server instead of a network-mount to secure against possible ransomware encryption.

So I made some tests to verify that I was safe in case of an emergency. I made a few backups to my FTP-server and into the Acronis Cloud. Surprisingly, these backups really worked!

So I thought it was a good idea to check some possible restore szenarios. Better check now instead of having trouble when I really need it.

1. Using the Desktop Version of TI2016
   • After the successful backup I tried to validate.
     Unfortunately this test ended with "Failed to open backup ftp://...."
     (see Screenshot 1)
   • Regardless of the previous failure I tried to restore...
     Result was almost the same except a little different message: "Failed to open information about FTP....." (See Screenshot 2)
2. OK, maybe, the Acronis TI2016 boot-disk can make it, so I booted from that one...
   • Now I was at least able to log into the FTP server to see my .tib backup files. Trying to access one of them unfortunately ended in the program to hang. I had to reboot but this "hang" repeated every time. From my FTP-server's logfile I see that after a first successful login with the correct credentials the program tries exactly 254 times to login as "anonymous" (which of course failed) before finally giving up...
   • OK, if FTP recovery is unfunctional, maybe I can at least restore from the Acronis Cloud.
     So I tried to log into my Cloud. Logging in seems to be succesful (as far as I was able to find). Nevetheless it ended up with either "Failed to retrieve the backup list from Acronis Cloud" (Screenshot 3) or "No items to display" (Screenshot 4)
3. OK, the Boot-Version is obviously even more unfunctional as the desktop version. So maybe the Cloud recovery from the desktop version works better. In fact, there isn't a desktop version to recover from the Cloud. It only sends you to the web-based browser version. Here I found two different aproaches to recover my backups:
   • The DashBoard: It shows my Device and a "Recovery" button next to it. OK: Click!
     What a surprise: I see all my backups well sorted by date and time. Nice! OK let's restore something.
     But what? I can browse through the folder structure, but - with NO restore or download option! NO way to select a backup or a folder for restoration. Only when I go down to a single file a "Download" button pops up. Just for ONE single file. Not even with the option to select multiple files! Never ever I have seen something more ridiculous!
     OK, I don't give up so quickly. Lets try to download one of those files. Next surprise: My sample file which was named "kp-tec Euro deutsch.fr3" before the backup restores as "kp-tec%20Euro%20deutsch.fr3". Good that I finally get rid of all the blanks in my filenames...
   • AHA, there is another "Backups" tab on my DashBoard which provides another view of my backups. So lets check this one. And finally here I can select Folders and/or Files and can download them. Too bad - this time I can only download the latest and newest version. NO access to any of the older versions... Again: How ridiculous is that?
   • Older versions can only be recovered on a file-by-file basis, NOT on a folder basis!!
     This means, if I want to revert to a status of some time ago of a complete folder or even a folder/subfolder structure, I have to restore each file separately!! Think of folder structures of 1000s of files... What at the end is the meaning of an "infinite" cloud storage space if you have NO access to what you backed up weeks, monthes or years ago?? May be I'm just too stupid to see the point....
4. Just yesterday, a new update (Build 6559) popped up and I thought it was a good idea to install it. Maybe, finally things are getting better...
   It was not a real surprise anymore that none of the beforementioned "Features" was improved.
   But now, I can't exclude folders from my backups anymore. So backing up only partial folder structures has become impossible. Looking into TI's log-file shows a
   "Das Element 'D::\Daten\ELO\Postbox' kann nicht gefunden werden." (see Screenshot 5)
   This is the folder that I expluded from the backup. Probably the double colon "::" is not understood...

I have spent a lot of money over the past 8 years and another significant amount just 3 weeks ago. I have spent days and nights to install, uninstall, backup, restore, reboot, test this, test that, read logfiles, understand what happens....

I was looking for a safe harbour for my valuable data and have obviously bought a piece of crap which is not at all worth to safeguard my data!

NOW I AM TIERD!!! I AM LOST!!! I AM GIVING UP!!!

!!! I WANT MY MONEY BACK !!!

My Acronis adventure has ended just NOW!

Klaus