True image noob questions
I had True image 2015 which worked perfectly, no issues. I then received an auto-upgrade to 2016 which worked for a while then every backup would fail with unable to backup file xxxxx. I received an Black Friday offer to upgrade to 2019 so I thought why not, hopefully all my issues will be fixed. They aren't - 3 years on!!
The backup fails every time and just says "The last backup failed". That's it. No reason, no cause, just that. Utterly useless at helping me diagnose the issue. It may be that it was unable connect to my NAS, which could be possible because it sleeps when not in use, but springs to life (under 10 seconds) when anything connects to it. Could it be that True Image just gives up waiting (I can't see anywhere to set a timeout)? There is nothing reported in the backup activity either.
If I run a manual backup, I get weird messages about failed files on drives that don't exist on my PC. I'm guessing it's a file, but where?!?!?!
What I need is an option to say 'On error, ignore file/folder' and then tell me in the backup activity what it had skipped. This seems to be a simple core basic feature to any backup software.
Any help would be great, thanks.
Hi Steve,
I downloaded and ran the installer and it presented me with an 'Upgrade' button. I pressed that and it upgraded to 2019.
It runs and works just fine, but I still have those issues. It just fails to backup whenever it runs automatically, but doesn't give me a reason why. Very frustrating.
Nick
Nick, I would recommend making a clean install of ATI 2019 (as per KB 61629: How to upgrade to Acronis True Image 2019 - which I quote earlier).
Before doing this, use the new option at the bottom of the main Settings page which will allow you to Save your current backup task configuration settings to a zip file, which you can then Import back again after doing the clean install from the zip file.
To do a clean install, first uninstall ATI normally via the Control Panel, then download / run the Acronis Cleanup tool (link below) as Administrator and follow the prompts shown. Restart the computer to complete the clean action, then install ATI 2019 again.
Hi Steve,
I have now done that, but the issue is still present. It just says "The last backup has failed". Any further thoughts?
Thanks,
Nick
Nick,
I would suggest creating a new backup(s) for your failed task(s). It sounds to me like the database that stores the backup task(s) information has become corrupted somehow.
Create a single new task that essentially mimics the failing one but give it a new name and store it in a new folder. See if it runs correctly. If it does delete the task that no longer works and use the new one.
Delete the task, but not the backup files which hopefully are OK up to about the time the backup stopped working.
Ian
Thanks both. I done that and created a new backup profile. When I first run it, I get this message (which I've seen lots before):
Failed to backup file or folder '\\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy14\My Documents\..... <filename>'. It may be blocked by another application.
The file isn't blocked by anything, it's just an Android .apk file, which isn't in use my Windows. I have ignored the file and the backup proceeds and completes. I'll wait to see if the automatic backup runs tomorrow...
Nick, whenever I have had similar error messages for folders like your \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy14\My Documents\..... <filename> - this has been caused by my antivirus software blocking something in one of the VSS shadow copy (snapshot) folders due to a false positive. In my case the Comodo antivirus thought it was finding an email virus! The strange part was that the original file that the snapshot was based on did not cause any issues!
I have since excluded all the main ATI executables from all antivirus scans and haven't seen any recent false positive reports!
Thanks Steve.
The automatic backup failed again. I have checked antivirus and there were indeed blocks on this file. I've added ATI to the exceptions, so hopefully it'll all be sorted now. Will report back.
Nope, the automatic backup failed again, nothing reported in ATI other than 'The last backup failed', which is utterly useless to help diagnose.
I did however find this in the Windows event log:
| Scheduler failed to run task with GUID '<GUID>' because of error 5 (Access is denied.). |
When creating/editing the backup configuration, I am asked to re-enter the user/password combo, which it accepts. I therefore cannot see why it would fail to run! I've now created a new Windows account and changed the backup to use that instead. Perhaps that will work!
So the scheduled backup ran, but complained it could not access my NAS. The NAS would have been 'sleeping' and can take up to 10 seconds to properly wake. Is there a timeout option anywhere that I can set to force the backup to wait a little longer? ATI 2014 never had an issue using the same NAS and backup configuration.
I did create a batch file on the NAS, and set this up as a pre-command, but it fails to execute it when I run the backup with 'Error code 1'. I've renamed the .bat to .cmd and that fails when I test the command with the error 'Execution of the user command failed'. The bat/cmd file contents is simply 'exit 0', which I was hoping to use as a way of waking the NAS prior to backup.
With no option to skip files it cannot backup, and failing to wait long enough for the destination to become available, I'm struggling to see how ATI is fit for purpose. These are basic requirements of backup software.
Nick, if your NAS is asleep when ATI wants to connect to it, then you will need more in your Pre Command than just putting 'exit 0', especially if the batch command is on the sleeping NAS!
Assuming your NAS has a static IP address, then I would suggest pinging it in your Pre Command from your own computer (further assuming that using Ping will cause the NAS to wake from sleep).
You could use a timeout in the batch file to allow for the time needed for the NAS to wake.
Example batch file: CheckIP.bat
@echo off :: ------------------------------------------------------ :: ----- Set baseIP to the IP address to be checked ----- :: ------------------------------------------------------ set baseIP=192.168.0.29 :: Checking for active baseIP address on local network :: errorlevel 0 = IP found / 1 = IP not found. ping -n 1 -l 1 %baseIP% > nul if %errorlevel%==1 exit /b 1 @echo %baseIP% found active on network! timeout /t 10 exit /b 0
Thanks for the script Steve. Using a tweaked version of that along with a new user just for the backups seems to have sorted the issues as the scheduled backups have run 2 days successfully so far.
Thanks for all your help.
Nick, glad to hear the script works for how you need it, thanks for the feedback.