ATI Cloud replication fails and makes PC's unusable. Recover only by ATI Cleanup Utility Uninstall.
I've used ATI for many years and recently upgraded to 2020 Premium (build 25700) to get cloud backup capability.
After many tries, the initial full system replica of my PC (about 250 GB) failed to complete and consistently made my PC slow to a crawl requiring a re-boot to make usable and returning to a crawl overnight. Since I expected the initial load to take several days, I let it continue after each re-boot, only to learn later that it was starting over rather than continuing. I then tried to Pause the replica at night, shutdown, boot clean in the morning and manually re-start the replica, only to find that that it was still starting over rather than resuming from the Pause. After 700 GB of Internet data upload, I still had nothing useful in cloud storage.
My wife's PC full system initial replica (just 42 GB) and one incremental backup were successful. The second incremental backup failed, and her PC also slowed to a crawl like my PC. This time, rebooting didn't fix it. Windows add/remove programs for ATI would start, but not complete. Opening the ATI installer and selecting "Uninstall" would also start but hang without completing. The Acronis Cleanup Utility was successful and made her PC usable once again.
I also used the Acronis Cleanup Utility on my PC and it no longer crawls.
The "crawling" symptoms were similar on both PC's with desktop CPU meters indicating low CPU and memory utilization while it was almost impossible to do anything useful with delays of 30 seconds or more for each mouse click. I never was successful getting the Task Manager to open and display process CPU utilization. It was all I could do to run the Acronis Cleanup Utility to make the PC's work. Both PC's are relatively new, capable Windows 10 machines with 16 GB of memory and ample SSD disk storage.
Interestingly, open Remote Desktop connections continued to work on my PC with no noticeable lag when everything else seemed to crawl. I don't remember what else may have worked once open but may have included simple text editor editing (but probably not file saving).
After a few days with both machines working normally, I reinstalled ATI on both machines, imported backup settings, and removed cloud backup settings. The machines continue to work normally while avoiding ATI cloud operations and making ATI backups to disk.
While I considered contacting Acronis support, I was still learning about using cloud operations, didn't know for sure that the system "crawling" episodes were caused by ATI, and felt I should do basic problem isolation first.
This has been a long, tedious experience and I don't have the Premium backup capability I need and paid for. I'm not anxious to start over and once again make these machines unusable while working with Acronis support. I'm amazed that I don't see this problem in the ATI user forums and web searches.
I'm interested in hearing from others who may have this problem as well as any suggestions.
I have only used Replication for testing purposes, starting with the Beta 1 of ATI 2020 and currently with the Beta 2 for ATI 2021.
When I first tried it I was on a 100/2 cable connection and it took a long time whenever there was a new full backup. Currently on a 100/36 plan and it is manageable. You should also avoid it if you have a limited monthly data allowance; I have unlimited data (subject to fair usage).
I believe that tailored Cloud backups are preferable. Where replication wold be useful would be to another drive on the computer (either internal or USB) and to NAS.
Edit: I have not had the issue you mention - I have had some issues in beta testing but nothing like the one you describe. No issues (that I can recall with "public" versions of ATI 2020).
Ian
As I was giving up on this issue after two months of trials, failures, and trashing my PCs with Acronis 2020, Acronis True Image 2021 was released. Acronis 2021 features "Resumable replication" as an enhancement. I was tired of trying and testing, but I felt Acronis 2021 was worth another try.
The results have been smooth! Things just worked for a change -- as they should.
I started over with new backups which use the new .tibx format by default. This format makes backup management much cleaner as differential and incremental backups add to the original .tibx backup file rather than creating additional .tib files.
While I had been using growing differential backups as a safer alternative to relatively small incremental backups, Acronis now says that .tibx format with incremental backups saved in the same file provides essentially the same or better backup integrity as differential backups. I switched to using incremental backups which is saving considerable storage space as well as greatly reducing data sent to the cloud.
Despite all prior advice to avoid using the Replica feature, I decided to use it. I figured I had a better chance of success replicating a single, completed, and stable .tibx file from a local external disk as a base for replication, than doing direct backups of moving target PC contents to the cloud. (I continue to do separate periodic full and incremental system backups to local external disks.)
I tested this approach with a 42 GB "Entire PC" backup and cloud replication of my wife's PC. With my average 8 Mbps upload speed, this completed in less than a day's time, including one shutdown without explicitly pausing the replication. Acronis restarted without a hiccup. Subsequent incremental backups with replication have taken about 20 or 30 minutes.
My PC's 240 GB initial backup and replication took nearly a week with shutdowns every night but still completed successfully. I paused the replication one night and just shut down the PC the other nights. Each time, the replication just restarted the following day. One time it detected that there had been a system shutdown and I had to click to resume. I probably had to click to resume after the pause as well. I recall that it just resumed on its own for the other days. My first incremental backup and replication was 5 GB and competed within an hour or so. I didn't time it.
I've scheduled weekly incremental backups with full backups every three months. My 1 TB cloud storage should handle that, as can my Internet provider's 1.25 TB monthly data plan.
If you've discounted Replication in the past or stressed to maintain an Internet connection to the cloud, Acronis 2021 looks like the solution.
My experience during beta testing of ATI 2021 was that replication was much improved; in particular the ability to pause replica and then resuming the process. My only problems were when I needed to da a manual cleanup where some very strange things happened - this has been corrected in the current build of ATI 2021.
When you say you shut down the PC's at night, were you doing proper shut-down, or merely going in the advanced hibernation used by quick start (something I only use on aging notebooks)?
Ian
Ian,
My nightly shutdowns are "proper" shutdowns as you say. That is, complete power off and boot at next use. I never use the other options.
John