authentication settings with windows 7 Network.

See Original Post

I had some issues with backing up to a NAS (which runs samba and therefore uses Windows authentication). I found I had to include machine name of the NAS box to get authentication to work... I.e. if login username on the target system is "abcde" and target machine name is "PC001", I had to specify username as "\\PC001\abcde". Maybe that will work. I did have a password set, though. Never tried it if password was blank cause I like the security of a password.

Acronis Support:
Like many others, I have a similar issue to:

17025: authentication settings with windows 7 Network.
18060: Edit Authentication Settings requested for all networked systems.

This is a real pain!! I can confirm 100% that I enter the correct Admin user PW to enable access to the shared folder where I wish to put the backup, but every time I enter the correct admin user PW I get the same couldn't connect error message (see attached capture). In my case, I get the Auth window appear twice (first time I enter the details, then second window appears and I enter details again - then it fails) plus a right-hand bracket appears in the File Name field for some unknown reason. Like the user above, I can access all shared folders via Windows Explorer with no problems. It does seem there is something wrong with TrueImage 2011, Windows 7 and the SMB protocol in terms of authentication!!!!

When are you going to respond to these paying Customers?

My details:
Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit
Acronis TI 2011 Plus Pack - Update 1 (Build 6597)

I have exactly the same problem!
acronis seems to be incompetent solve that essentially problem.
can the software developers of acronis really backup my data secure, if they dont unterstand basics of network technology?????
I think not!
sorry acronis, but your software ATI 2011 is really a piece of sh**

My details:
Windows 7 Ultimate 32-Bit
Acronis TI 2011 Plus Pack - Update 1 (Build 6696)

Authentication looks like from previous post.

Tried suggestion about using computername\user, but I'm still facing this issue as well. I've posted this on a few other treads as well, but here is some additional info I've seen with this problem.

I ran Process Monitor to see if that might shed any light and I see that before I get prompted for the credentials, TrueImage.exe tries a CreateFile operation on the share and gets ACCESS DENIED while impersonating the ID on the local machine. After I type in credentials for the remote share and click Connect, I don't see any ACCESS DENIED messages, just these strange entries.

2:24:42.8121951 PM TrueImage.exe 5000 CreateFile \\;RdpDr\;:1\remoteserver\ BAD NETWORK NAME Desired Access: Read Attributes, Disposition: Open, Options: Open For Backup, Open Reparse Point, Attributes: n/a, ShareMode: Read, Write, Delete, AllocationSize: n/a

To me, it seems like TIH is the problem, not the security settings on my remote server. Everything else can access the share and write to it just fine.

I don't want to get anyones hopes up (including mine), but I may have gotten it to work. This really isn't a fix, more of a workaround. I had same username passwords setup on both machines and that kept failing for some reason. I tried the connection using a different username that existed on the remote destination machine and it worked. Seems like TIH 2011 doesn't like same usernames across different machines.

I'm an IT professional, but a new user to tih2011.

I have a similar problem were TIH fails to authenticate to a network share with WIN XP. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. All shares do show up in Network Places, mapped drives, in tih2011, and remote desktop will authenticate, but TIH will not authenticate when trying to back up or browse for a backup.

And yes, I have the same user id/pw on all of my home servers. Why does it work sometimes, and not other times?

This is clearly a problem with TIH2011 not understanding what WinXP is doing.

I left a VM for the Acronis CEO about his horrible support.
I'm about ready to throw TIH into the trash.

Dietmar Kurtz wrote:

I'm an IT professional, but a new user to tih2011.

This is clearly a problem with TIH2011 not understanding what WinXP is doing.

This seems not linked to XP, as others have the same issue with seven.
On my side, I've installed TIH2011 on XP and experienced the issues described as my windows user has no password and is defined as is on my nas (no pwd). I've reported it here.

As this was not working, I decided to use an other user that has only access to the backup share, backup share not mounted as a network drive.

It worked, but the main problem was that as soon as the backup task was started, my windows user was "changed" by the backup one... So I could no longer have access to my mapped network drives. Have to reboot to gain the access again.

As this was not working (bis), I decided to try to use the FTP access, but FTP is not working either and there are several messages that talk about that here.

Opened a call for the FTP, but the fact that support replies were requesting logs/installation of third party softwares and that I was moving to seven so didn't want to keep XP for Acronis tests that should have been done by them before releasing this "thing" on the market, I asked them to close it.

FTP was working with no issue in older releases (didn't try 2010, so older than this one).

I left a VM for the Acronis CEO about his horrible support.

I will say that the support does its best to help but is limited by the fact that if the product is bugged they cannot do anything.
They are in front line, usualy understaffed, having predefined Q&A, taking "scuds" at the place of dev & quality team assuming the last one exist.

I'm about ready to throw TIH into the trash.

That is what I've done at the end, didn't install it on seven and will probably never buy TIH again...
Reading this forum and seeing no Acronis representative (other than support, like dev manager, quality manager) at least to say that they are aware of the issues and sticking a post of known bugs, tells me that they don't care.

I keep the online backup for one year (payed for one year) and see next year if I keep it or close for ever the Acronis products (DD, TI, TIH, Online backup) adventure started years ago.

In my case authentication typically stops working after editing a working, scheduled backup job, saving it, and then manually starting (testing) the new backup job.

Has anyone else tried to reboot their router and retry authentication?

For me, authentication start to work again after the router reboot. It seems that something happens to the network when doing a backup.

Dietmar Kurtz wrote:

In my case authentication typically stops working after editing a working, scheduled backup job, saving it, and then manually starting (testing) the new backup job.

Has anyone else tried to reboot their router and retry authentication?

For me, authentication start to work again after the router reboot. It seems that something happens to the network when doing a backup.

This is really strange as I don't see how the router can be involved in this...
My router (WRT54GL under Tomato) is a 100mb/s router, it is linked to a Gb switch where the NAS and the PC are connected.
As my transfert rate between the PC and the NAS clearly shows that I'm in Gb (30MB/s, this is the max of my small NAS) this clearly means that no data packet goes through the router otherwise I would be limited to something like 10MB/s.

I have a very similar network config, a DIR 655 and a 1gigabit switch.

Authentication failure means that TIH is not getting to the share folder PC (or NAS). That's why I tried rebooting the router, and it started to work.

In my case, while TIH authentication fails, I can get to the share from that same PC just by clicking on the share folder (My Network Places) and opening it; PING works fine, even remote desktop to the backup share PC works.

So the TIH PC clearly has connectivity to the backup share. That's why I'm puzzled as to why TIH is failing authentication.

I will try to document the steps to make it fail.

So I found an easy way for me to replicate the problem:
1. Create a NEW backup job of My Documents to another PC share. I had it run automatically at 12noon.
2. Wait until it finishes.
3. Edit that same backup job:
- Click Destination / browse
- My Network Places
- Click on share name
The Edit Authentication box comes up
- Click on Test connection
- Connetion failed
4. While the Edit Authentication box is still on you screen (with the Connection Failed message):
- Reboot router and wait until fully rebooted
5. Click on Test connection

Low and behold, it connects.

Now, I'm not holding my breath for an Acronis Support person responds to this.

Surprise!
After having left a voice mail for the CEO, I received voice mails from both a senior manager and a tech support person 2 days ago, and I actually talked to a support person today (Sunday) who was very knowledgeable and sincerely wanted to help. They have read this thread.

I discussed the general support issues I have with Acronis, and they will review my concerns.

We also discussed the authentication issue, and decided to provide Acronis with several diagnostic reports, which will get done in the next couple of days (I have to duplicate the problem). One of the reports is a Wireshark packet capture, which should shed some light on what might be going on...

I will get back to this thread as soon as Acronis gives me some answers.

We look forward to hearing your solution/resolution.

I've been running scheduled nightly Acronis backups from 2 Windows-7 (64-bit) desktops with the target backup location on a Dlink DNS-323 NAS server running Samba. So far I haven't had any backup failures where the backup couldn't authenticate using the backup location settings which use a fully qualified server name like : \\NAS01\Backups\Acronis\Workstation-1\PartitionBackups

I haven't tried backing up to other Windows-7 machines, though.

-Jim-

I run backups to a NAS server from a Windows 7 computer using ATIH 2011. I initially had this problem, but overcame it by specifying the backup location as: \\NAS\Acronis\Backups rather than J:\Acronis\Backups. Since specifying the location in this format I have not had any problems creating backups.

However, I recently tried to restore files from backup and I get a request to 'Edit Authentication Settings'. Even if I get a connection to the server, I am unable to restore files from the backup. The restore process starts, but completes in less than a second and no files are restored.

Like others, I'm interested in a fix for this issue. Not much point in implementing a file backup system if I can't restore files from the backup.

Hello all,

Thank you very much for posting and your kind assistance.

I would recommend the following article from our Knowledge Base regarding backups to a NAS device. In case of any issues, please contact our Support team with the following information so that we can investigate these issues:

1. AcronisInfo report.

2. Wireshark logs.

Most of these situations require individual investigation.

Dietmar, I will do my best to help you.

Your open case is being handled by a support professional and he asked you for diagnostic information so that we can resolve this problem.

I would really appreciate if you can let me know what was the issue with contacting our Support team so that we can fix it. We have several support options offered to our Consumer Customers, you can check them here. Acronis Forum is more of a community than a support channel, there can be delays with responding. All of this is covered in the Forum TOU which have to be agreed to before posting here.

Please let me know if you have additional questions.

Thank you.

I have submitted detailed screen shots to Acronis. I am not willing to send the Wireshark capture file since it contains a critical password (even though it is encrypted, I think).

I feel that Arconis'es Software QA and their developers can now easily duplicate the problem.

My analysis of this is that TIH does not communicate properly with the Microsoft OS as it pertains to the CURRENT network shares. CURRENT meaning at the time of the backup or restore, or editing a backup script.

The solution may be as simple as Michael Edwards indicates: the network share name has to completely define the path to the share, including the backup server name, etc.

I curious and as a test, after you get the failed authentication on your restore, try rebooting your router, wait for a full reboot, and then try your authentication again. This does not solve the underlying software problem. Also try to do a Explore/Recover immediately after a successful backup.

While attempting to connect to a Windows 7 machine hosting the backup files, I received the same authentication error described by several users in this forum.

When I reviewed the logs on the host, I found this error:

The server was unable to allocate from the system nonpaged pool because the server reached the configured limit for nonpaged pool allocations.

I did some research on the error and found an article which referenced a registry change to correct the issue.

I ran regedit, navigated to HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters

I changed the parameter "Size" from the default of 2 to a new value of 3, then rebooted.

I no longer see this error in the event viewer, and the machine I'm connecting from for the restore now connects without issue.

I ran into the authentication problem when I tried to backup my laptop to a shared drive on my desktop. Same symptoms as above - none of my existing username/passwords would authenticate. The drive has no restrictions and is setup for Everyone (all permissions).

I read through the posts and noted the one regarding using a different username and as a test I created a standard user "Acronis" on my target machine and set a password. The new credntials worked and I was able to complete the backup. Hope this helps and is not a fluke.

This is a workaround but surely this should help Acronis tech support figure out what they need to do to prevent agravating their users. Its an Acronis issue with Windows 7 - nuff said.

Same symptoms for me, too.

I tried editing the registry as discussed above -- no dice.

I tried creating a new user with admin status -- no dice.

This is for my son's netbook running Windows 7 Starter Edition. Netbook is great -- Starter Edition stinks, but is serviceable for the time being.

I'm not sure what to do. The seemingly "Robo-Response" from Acronis above is disquieting.

I'll see if I can make this thing work. If not, I'll seek a refund from Acronis -- and tell all my computer-owning friends to avoid this product in the future. I'm the "tech guy" in my large circle of family and friends, and I used to recommend Acronis to all of them. Not sure what's happened lately, but the products seem to have degraded over time.

Update:  5/13/2011

Problem solved for me (after two hours of patient help from a knowledgeable Acronis support man).  

My problem was the unique way QNAP servers handle user authentication.  Rather than just a user name, QNAP expects a "domain.local\User" format.  As I only operate a LAN, the QNAP server required a "\" before the user name:  "\User" rather that simply "User".  Once I simply added a "\" before the first character of my user name, the backup executed flawlessly. 

Because of this odd requirement during authentication, neither I nor many other IT folk can use our Windows authentication to automatically log in to a QNAP server.

We're waiting for a firmware upgrade (or some other change) to address this problem.

I hope this proves helpful to others

This issue remains in 2017. Authentication  has been driving me nuts for hours on a simple ethernet LAN win7/64.