Completing failed online backup
My 14Gb online backup ran for over 2 days then failed before completion. I need to know how to complete it. If I start the backup again will it just backup changed and missing files? I incurred charges for the data backed up so far so need to know that it won't start from scratch again. Anyone help please?
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Hi Colin
Yes the backup is there but not complete. I couldn't access it before but I can see it now. I guess that means it will backup only missing and changed files if I run it again is that correct? Still can't access the backup from the app though. Is that normal when the backup fails before completion?
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Yes Michael,
You should just get the missing and changed files backed up. I can't answer the second part of your question as I don't use OLB on a regular basis.
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I thought I would share how this problem has been resolved, well sort of anyway.
I contacted Acronis support via live chat to check on progress with my on-going issue. The problem was that my 20 Gb backup failed before completion after two days and 19+Gb of data backup up. Every attempt to complete the backup by running it again resulted in failure after about 10 minutes with the message "Failed to upload data to Data server. Check your Internet connection or try again later." Although I could see the backup files using the laptop and the Iphone app, I could only open individual files using the laptop. And of course it wasn’t complete. Nor was it obvious which files were missing without a lot of cross checking.
The technician took a proactive approach and after some discussion logged into my laptop to see the problem first hand. He took an approach that I hadn't expected and edited the OLB task so that only a few Gb of data was selected. The original file selection amounting to approx 20 Gb he unchecked. The backup completed successfully, indicating that it was ‘consolidating the backup ’during the process. This seems to have had the effect of repairing the database. He suggested this method because of my ‘slow’ upload speed which was typically 700-800 Mb/sec.
There was some confusion however. Before we started this exercise, the size of my laptop backup was 19+Gb but after consolidation was indicated as a tiny 349 bytes on the Acronis Cloud site. The amount of free space left (out of 250Gb) was adjusted accordingly. This led me to suspect that the original backup had been deleted but the technician demonstrated that the files were still present. This discrepancy was described as a GUI glitch and he promised to feed this information back to the developers.
There are still a couple of problems, however. I still cannot view the backup files using the iPhone app, something that I can do easily on a backup from another PC to the same cloud. This makes me question the full integrity of the backup.
Secondly, I initially assumed that his intention was to select only a small batch of files at every stage of the backup (i.e. de-selecting all else) but perhaps this isn’t the case. I imagine that when starting a new large backup in this way, the files selected at stage 1 would stay selected at stage 2 and so on. Providing that subsequent stage 1 file revisions are not significant, they won’t have a significant effect on the whole backup. It’s unfortunate that this process is necessary but if it means that I can eventually achieve a reliable backup I suppose it’s something I will have to do. Has anyone seen this approach documented or is it widely understood anyway?
I normally only contribute to forums when I need help but sometimes it’s frustrating to read about someone else’s problem and not see the solution. So in this case thought it may be helpful share the outcome. If anyone has had a similar problem and can fill in some gaps I would be grateful.
Michael Hall
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Michael
Thanks for posting this explanation. It has helped me correct a problem with my own on-line backup.
I have been using ATIH2013 to do a weekly backup for some time. I had a lot of problems to begin with but it had seemed to be operating successfully for some time. Then one day it failed to complete so I tried running it again but it still failed to complete even though running overnight. When I went to look at the backed up folders to check all was OK I noticed some really strange behaviour. Some folders that had been backed up weeks before were now apparently missing and one drive appeared twice in the Cloud screen (although each version had identical files on it). When I ran another backup (which also failed) and then visited the Cloud I found some folders had reappeared and others had gone missing. I posted details of these problems in the Forum a couple of days ago but no one responded.
I then saw your post and tried repeating what you described. I entered the "settings" screen for my on-line backup and deleted from my list of folders all except just a few relatively small ones and then re-ran the backup. This time it ran to completion including the "Consolidating" stage. Now when I go to the Cloud to see my backed up files the missing ones have all reappeared. I should say I still see two identical copies of one of my disk drives but I can live with that.
It certainly seems that when the on-line back up terminates without completing consolidation, it can mess up the system. The answer when this happens is to do what you set out. Carry out a fresh backup but with just a small amount of files selected.
Thanks again. Your decision to post this insight certainly helped me!
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