Pausing a backup ATI 2020
Several times I have had the need to pause or stop a backup in progress because I needed to use my computer and ATI2020 had the focus. When I opened ATI2020 and clicked on STOP I just got a revolving wheel and the backup never released focus of the cpu. How can I stop (or preferably, pause) a back up that is in progress? Thanx!
Michael, sorry but more information is needed to understand why you are unable to pause or stop your backup task?
What type of backup is involved? Disk backup or Files backup?
What destination is being used? Local / external or network drive, or Cloud?
What options have you chosen for the task, in particular, on the Advanced page for Performance?
Normally, most ATI tasks run in the background without taking all the CPU when using the default options provided by Acronis.
Note: the backup_worker task (referenced by Logitech21) is used for any new Disk backup task as well as backups to the Acronis Cloud - these are using the new .tibx file format.
Michael replied via a PM.
Thanx for the reply. I will address each of your questions:
> What type of backup is involved? Disk backup or Files backup?
Full, Incremental and differential FILE backups. I have never tried to do a disk backup.
> What destination is being used? Local / external or network drive, or Cloud?
I have two external USB hard drives and one internal Hybrid drive, all attached to the local computer. I do a total of five different backups at different times and intervals.
> What options have you chosen for the task, in particular, on the Advanced page for Performance?
As noted above, there are five different backups ranging from FULL, INCREMENTAL and DIFFERENTIAL using different target drives and schedules. Pretty much Anything I try to do with ATI2020 steals focus.
> Normally, most ATI tasks run in the background without taking all the CPU when using the default options provided by Acronis.
Is there a specific setting for this? I have a feeling I may have changed something unintentionally.
> Note: the backup_worker task (referenced by Logitech21) is used for any new Disk backup task as well as backups to the Acronis Cloud - these are using the new .tibx file format.
I was unable to translate his message, so did not try whatever he mentioned.
As an aside, when I start ATI2010 manually, it takes about 10 seconds to load. I have a 1TB SSD program drive with plenty of free RAM and working drive space. Is this normal?
FWIW, I am going to try to restart a backup right now (I was actually able to stop it, but it took over 10 minutes to do so - during which time I received a PROCESSING message). This is a fairly small backup (130MB) and it completed in a few seconds. Next I tried a 28 GB backup, and so far it is not stealing focus, but it is taking quite awhile to calculate TIME REMAINING. After 4 minutes, it started backing up, and has not stolen focus from THIS window (that I am writing this message in), but if I try to open (for example) EXPLORER it takes about 6 seconds for the window to open (normally happens immediately). However this is OK with me. Last night it took literally 4 minutes for me to open an EXPLORER window while ATI was running, and then focus was stolen again almost immediately. The only thing I changed this morning was two backups that had been set to DIFFERENTIAL to INCREMENTAL (trying to reduce the size of the backups running each day).
Just now validation seemed to get hung (for maybe two minutes it told me the wait time was over 6 hours, now it is 7 minutes).
So, any ideas? Thanx again.
Michael, thank you for the answers.
In summary, you are doing only Files & Folders backups to local internal / external drives.
I am assuming when you mention starting ATI2010 manually, that this is a typo and you really meant ATI 2020 (not 2010)..!
Files & Folders backups continue to use .tib file format as per all earlier versions of ATI and as such are unchanged in ATI 2020 and don't use the backup_worker.exe process, so that is not a factor here.
The time to load the initial ATI 2020 main GUI does seem to be around 10 - 15 seconds for most users unless there are other factors involved, where some users report it taking significantly longer.
All backup tasks do take a little time to move on from 'calculating time...' to actually processing the backup data, this is because some analysis has to be done to determine what needs to be included in the backup image.
For Differential backups, ATI is identifying all changed data since the initial Full backup image was created, and will do this for all differential files.
For Incremental backups, ATI is identifying all changed data since the previous backup (Full or Incremental) was created, so should normally be the faster method.
Validation is a separate process to any backup activity. With validation, Acronis has both to read back the .tib files for the backup chain, i.e. the Full backup plus all subsequent Differential or Incremental files for that chain, then recalculate the checksum values for each segment of those files to compare with values that are stored within the file structures themselves.
The final comment at this point, is that the estimated time remaining is notoriously inaccurate but should become more accurate as either the backup or validation progresses and ATI can establish the actual data transfer speeds etc.
Returning to the initial issue for this forum topic, i.e. pausing or stopping a backup, this will also take some time depending on which action you are attempting to perform?
If you are pausing a backup, then ATI has to finish processing the blocks of data it is dealing with, which may include all the data currently held with the Microsoft VSS snapshot storage areas, so as to ensure that the backup can be resumed without any loss of data.
If you are stopping the backup, then ATI has to perform a number of cleanup tasks to both clean up and remove the new file being created on your destination drive, plus also the VSS snapshot storage spaces, as well as updating the internal Acronis database information to reflect the correct status of the backup task, i.e. that it has been stopped prematurely, thus any changes identified since the prior backup operation should be discarded when the next backup is performed.
Finally, my question: "What options have you chosen for the task, in particular, on the Advanced page for Performance?" perhaps wasn't understood as your answer was not related to this question.
See the ATI 2020 User Guide: Performance of backup operation - where it describes the options for this area of your backup tasks, and the controls you can use for the same.
Note: with reference to translating text from other languages to English, you can use a web browser plugin for this, or else copy / paste the foreign language text into Google Translate.
Several times I have had the need to pause or stop a backup in progress because I needed to use my computer and ATI2020 had the focus.
Most ATI activities run in the background with the ATI GUI just reporting on their activity. That is definitely the case for backups. You can close the GUI (or switch focus away from it) without interrupting the the backup.
When I opened ATI2020 and clicked on STOP I just got a revolving wheel and the backup never released focus of the cpu.
I have occasionally seen this happen. For some reason the GUI sometimes does not get an updated status and just hangs. Usually the GUI can be closed when this happens, and when restarted, it will reflect the current status. If you can collect documentation showing this, it would be worth submitting feedback to Acronis. If the GUI cannot be closed, you should contact Acronis Support.
Steve Smith wrote:In summary, you are doing only Files & Folders backups to local internal / external drives...
I am assuming when you mention starting ATI2010 manually, that this is a typo and you really meant ATI 2020 (not 2010)...
Returning to the initial issue for this forum topic, i.e. pausing or stopping a backup, this will also take some time depending on which action you are attempting to perform?...
Finally, my question: "What options have you chosen for the task, in particular, on the Advanced page for Performance?" perhaps wasn't understood as your answer was not related to this question.
Correct, FIles & Folders to local drives, using ATI2020.
I do not see a button to click for PAUSE during an active backup. How is PAUSE accomplished? I was simply stopping the backup.
As for PERFORMANCE, all five of my backups are set the same: NORMAL compression (NOTE: this item is greyed out and I couldn't change it if I wanted to), and LOW priority.
So it would seem there is no reason for ATI to steal focus (it does so during ANY backup, whether the GUI is running or not). I have rescheduled my backups to try to just avoid this issue, but there are only so many "non-used" hours during the day/night (I have insomnia at times, so even the middle of the night can be a "busy" time).
Thanx for taking the time to assist. I really would like to know how to PAUSE an active backup, so please tell me.
Michael, having just done some further testing on my own laptop with ATI 2020 doing a 25GB Files / Folders backup, the only option offered is to 'Stop' the backup while it is active.
Opening the Windows Task Manager and sorting the Details page of processes by descending CPU usage shows the main TrueImageHomeService as the main process for this type of backup task, where if you look at Priority for the process, you should see as shown in my image below.
As shown above, the priority should already be set to be 'Below normal' and therefore not impacting your other use of the computer, but you could set to one step lower as 'Low' or else there is the option of 'End task' to kill the backup altogether, though doing so is not recommended as the ATI error handling controls will try to relaunch it again!
I would recommend submitting Feedback to Acronis using the tool provided in the Help section of the GUI to ask for a 'Pause' option to be provided.
Steve Smith wrote:I would recommend submitting Feedback to Acronis using the tool provided in the Help section of the GUI to ask for a 'Pause' option to be provided.
However, I would recommend not mentioning releasing focus as a justification. That should automatically happen with or without a 'Pause' option.
There are other good reasons for a Pause:
- needing to reboot a router without killing a backup to a NAS
- needing to replace a USB cable or hub without killing a backup to an external drive
I don't know if the ATI architecture can incorporate the Pause, but the need exists.
Steve Smith wrote:Michael, having just done some further testing on my own laptop with ATI 2020 doing a 25GB Files / Folders backup, the only option offered is to 'Stop' the backup while it is active.
Thanx Steve. I sincerely appreciate the help.
Patrick O'Keefe wrote:Steve Smith wrote:I would recommend submitting Feedback to Acronis using the tool provided in the Help section of the GUI to ask for a 'Pause' option to be provided.
There are other good reasons for a Pause:
- needing to reboot a router without killing a backup to a NAS
- needing to replace a USB cable or hub without killing a backup to an external drive
Thank you, Patrick and all! Added feedback from this thread to the existing feature request.