Failed to Backup File or Folder ".

Hello Bill,

Thank you for using Acronis Products

Can you please clarify the following:

1)      The destination place for the backup archive?

2)      If it’s external drive then what is the connection?

3)      What is the type of the backup, full drive/partition of file folder backup?

I would also recommend you update scheduler using the following KB article and see if the issue persists. 

I am experiencing exactly the same problem as Bill.

My backup archive is on a HP Media drive plugged directly into my PC.

My problem is occuring with a full data backup.

Program is TI home 2009

The destination is a USB external drive.

The backup is an incremental  file folder backup.

I ran the Scheduler fix and scheduler log which captured the following up to the point of failure

31.08.2009 20:30:03 Running task 1-3
31.08.2009 20:30:03 LogonUser: < domain="Bill-9100" user="Bill" > error=0
31.08.2009 20:30:03 NewSecurityDescriptor: > error=0
31.08.2009 20:30:03 SetTokenInformation: > error=0
31.08.2009 20:30:03 GetTokenUserName: > error=0 domain="Bill-9100" user="Bill"
31.08.2009 20:30:03 NetUserGetInfo: < dcname="" user="Bill" > error=0
31.08.2009 20:30:03   user="Bill" password="(null)" password_age=15819019
31.08.2009 20:30:03   priv=admin home_dir="" comment=""
31.08.2009 20:30:03   flags=0|script|no_passwd|norm|no_expire
31.08.2009 20:30:03   script="" auth_flags=0
31.08.2009 20:30:03   full_name="" comment="" parms="" wkss=""
31.08.2009 20:30:03   last_logon="Mon Aug 31 20:30:03 2009"
31.08.2009 20:30:03   last_logoff="Never"
31.08.2009 20:30:03   acct_expires="Never" max_storage=-1 units_per_week=168
31.08.2009 20:30:03   bad_pw_count=0 num_logons=422 logon_server="\\*"
31.08.2009 20:30:03   country_code=0 code_page=0
31.08.2009 20:30:03   user_id=0x3E8 group_id=0x201
31.08.2009 20:30:03   profile="" home_dir_drive="" password_expired=0x0
31.08.2009 20:30:03 GetUserProfileDirectory > error=0.
31.08.2009 20:30:03 LoadUserProfile: < user="Bill" path="" > error=0
31.08.2009 20:30:03 CreateEnvironmentBlock: > error=0
31.08.2009 20:30:03 CreateProcessAsUser: < token=00000204 > error=0
31.08.2009 20:30:03 API Extra: OP=RUN_TASK Executed with error=0
31.08.2009 20:30:03 API Reply: OP=RUN_TASK Ver=3 Status=0 Misc=1 Id=3
31.08.2009 20:30:03 API Entry: OP=WAIT_CHANGES_EX Ver=3 Misc=1128865904 Id=0 IntUser=-1 LogonSid=S-1-5-5-0-209949 User="Bill-9100\Bill"
31.08.2009 20:30:03 API Reply: OP=WAIT_CHANGES_EX Ver=3 Status=0 Misc=1128865904 Id=3
31.08.2009 20:30:03 API Entry: OP=WAIT_CHANGES_EX Ver=3 Misc=1128865904 Id=0 IntUser=-1 LogonSid=S-1-5-5-0-209949 User="Bill-9100\Bill"
31.08.2009 20:30:18 Task 1-3 completed with exit code=1
31.08.2009 20:30:18 API Reply: OP=WAIT_CHANGES_EX Ver=3 Status=0 Misc=1128865904 Id=3
31.08.2009 20:30:18 API Entry: OP=WAIT_CHANGES_EX Ver=3 Misc=1128865904 Id=0 IntUser=-1 LogonSid=S-1-5-5-0-209949 User="Bill-9100\Bill"
31.08.2009 20:30:20 API Entry: OP=STOP_WAIT_CHANGES Ver=3 Misc=1836020326 Id=221 IntUser=1 LogonSid=S-1-5-5-0-209949 User="Bill-9100\Bill"
31.08.2009 20:30:20 API Reply: OP=STOP_WAIT_CHANGES Ver=3 Status=0 Misc=1836020326 Id=221
31.08.2009 20:30:20 API Reply: OP=WAIT_CHANGES_EX Ver=3 Status=1223 Misc=1128865904 Id=0

having the same / VERY SIMILAR problem as bill and donald.

trying incremental backup archive on a network device and when there system files the errorm message failed to backup dialog box appears.

The option to IGNORE dialog box error messages during backup has been checked but this does not get around the problem (THE DIALOG BOX APPEARS AND STOPS THE BACKUP UNTIL YOU CLICK IGNORE). 

I'm not interested in backing up the system files so this condition is OK, although one would think there would be some way to get such files included in  the backup. I DON'T WANT TO BABY SIT THIS PROCESS AND HAVE TO CLICK "IGNORE"  for EVERY message that gets displayed!

Is there ANY help out there?

sorry..  this is a duplicate entry. 

Clicked save 2 times (was slow and no response so i clicked 2nd time).. got duplicate entry.  tried to delete the message but could not delete or set to "empty".

Not sure what to expect in this forum.  Doesn't seem like there are many support options.  I don't mind paying but in this case it looks like it's a "bug" or poorly documented feature and don't want to pay when a product doesnt work as documented.

Hello all,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Could you please clarify, how many users do you have on your system? If you trying to backup Documents and settings from one user's account, other folders may be blocked and backup will fail.

We are looking forward to hearing back from you at your earliest convenience.

Thank you.

I have just one user on my system

Bill

I have the problem too. 

From the log file:

<event code="17" id="3" level="4" message="Failed to backup file or folder ''.&#10;Specified file does not exist.: None" module="4" time="1253706247" />

This occured with an incremental data backup to hard disk connected by USB.  The job started at 4 this morning and also was a problem the previous few days.  I enter ignore and the job locks up; I run the job again, enter ignore again, and the job completes normally.

I have attached the whole log file.

What to do?

- Max

I have a slightly different problem I think.  When Scheduler tries to back up the disk it fails and I get the following message:  Scheduler failed to run task choice, 0""}with GUID}because of error 2 (failed to find the file(folder) or key(value) in the registry.

Any help is appreciated.

Hi ....I have just bought Acronis TI Home and have the same problem. The trial version didn't execute the scheduler for my backup (although it would execute manually) and so I followed instructions on the web page and downloaded the patch. Bought your product and assumed the patch would sort out previous problem .....got the above error and the following in the log.....please can you help? I am a single user and trying to write to a maxtor external hard drive via USB...thanks....

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<log uuid="A3103420-16E0-4F4A-B6E6-86CF39D73CF7" product="Acronis True Image Home" version="12.0" build="9770" task="0103A593-4268-497F-A0FD-1B8B0C98CA0B" task_name="Development Code" >
 <event id="1" level="2" module="100" code="2" time="1254139636" message="Operation Development Code started." />
 <event id="2" level="4" module="4" code="17" time="1254139640" message="Failed to backup file or folder ''.&#10;Specified file does not exist.: None" />
 <event id="3" level="4" module="11" code="1004" time="1254139659" message="&#32;(0xB03EC)&#10; &#32; &#32;Tag = 0x65E40AA0B487192" />
 <event id="4" level="4" module="100" code="5" time="1254139660" message="Operation has completed with errors." />
</log>

I have a similar problem. VISTA x64 SP1 on a Dell Studio XPS w/WD external USB drive. I'm using the default "Power Saver" options setup by Dell. I suspect what is happening that after the PC goes into "Sleep" mode the external drive is no longer visible. Could this be the problem? Does the scheduled backup have to occur before the PC goes into Sleep mode?

Hi Stephen....the (my) problem occurs even if you try to run it manually so I don't think its that. Have to say I'm pretty disappointed so far - I needed a patch to get the scheduler to work and now this! Might be asking for my money back....

I also have this problem, however I know when it started. I was using iTunes, when itunes hung and must have had the volume (WD 1TB USB attached) allocated. Acronis ran fine before the iTunes hang, and has failed since then.
This is the second time I've seen the problem. The first time I experienced the problem was immediately after a .NET upgrade, and for some reason, known only to MicroSoft, the upgrade left some hidden un-deletable files on the volume (a Seagate 80 GB internal drive). Once I identified the problem, I downloaded a "delete file on startup" utility, got rid of the files, and had absolutely no problems with Acronis until the iTunes hang.
I'm assuming that there's a flaky(<==highly technical term) directory entry or file somewhere on the volume, but haven't been able to find it yet. The reason I'm think this is that I went through the volume, copied (cut/paste) everything off to another volume, formatted the volume, copied (cut/paste) the data back, and the problem still exists.
As a further test, I used Acronis to back up the data; which it did with one error message, to which I replied ignore. I then did a quick format of the volume, and then used Acronis to restore the data. End result, I still get the error.
At the moment I'm in a holding pattern, as it took a while to move all the data off a 1TB drive, and I really don't want to put everything back until I'm sure this is resolved.

I've attached a log file. I also have the latest snapapi drivers and snapapilog.dll installed from another problem I was working on, so more documentation is available.

I'm running a Dell 4600, Windows XP Pro, which is up to date with maintenance. I have two internal 80 GB Seagate drives in addition to the WD 1TB USB attached drive. I'm running ATI Home 2009 at build 9796.

I'm having the same issue as the thread creator. I'm using Acronis True Image Home 2009.

My system is Vista x64 Business, my backup is a subfolder in the C-drive (incremental). I backup to a network share (the connection test in acronis says connection is ok).

Can you please explain when the /failed to backup file or folder ''/ message can appear?

At which point can the file/folder actually be an empty string? The fact that the string is empty seems to me to indicate a failure to trap an exception in your code.

Without source code it is quite hard to debug this problem and just stating that it is a disk error is not enough information. What kind of disk error are we talking about?

Running chkdsk on my drive reports no errors of any kind. Is this a source disk error or a destination disk error?

i get the warning below can you please advise
6 Warning! 05/10/2009 22:00 Failed to snapshot partition with ID: 221 containing path 'C:\' being backed up.
Backup operation will not snapshot that path.
7 Information 05/10/2009 22:00 Create Incremental Backup

I have resolved my problem (the same problem described in the first post in this string), it was a flaky directory entry. I don't know exactly what was wrong with the directory entry. The clue was the fact that if I copied the folders to another drive, the problem followed the folders.
The steps I took to resolve this (your drive addresses will differ):

1. Copied all the data off the drive H (where I kept my data) to drive G (a spare).

2. I knew which folders were suspect, as I had several different backup tasks running against drive H backing up different folders, and only one failed, so this isolated the problem to one of four folders. All the folders involved were in the root directory on the drive, ie: H:\folder a.

3. Full format of the drive H. I think you need to do this to ensure that you are starting with a clean directory structure. Just make sure you have completed step 1 above, or have some other type of complete backup of the data on the drive available.

4. Instead of copying the folders back to drive H, I created a new folder (file -> new -> folder) "H:\folder a" on the freshly formatted drive. I then went to the folders I had backed up (step 1 above), opened "G:\ folder a", and then copied the CONTENTS of G:\folder a to the newly created "H:\folder a". I did this for all four of the suspect folders.

5. Deleted the Acronis backup task that backed up these folders and recreated it. I don't know what metadata the product stores when a backup task is created, but after doing everything above, I wanted to make sure that I had cleaned up every possible cause.

I haven't had a failure since. There has to be a problem with the Acronis somewhere, as all the other software I'm running never had a problem with any data on the drive.

When I try to backup the system state, I get "Failed to Backup folder or file." My computer is an XP 64 bit model.

Here is the first of many files it fails to backup:
c:\windows\system32\config\SECURITY

It says that something has this file LOCKED. Remove the lock and try again. I don't know what is locking this file, but I did disable the anti virus software AVG 8.5. That didn't help.

By the way, it seems that there are many questions and very few answers. Are we just writing to console each other?

Hello all,

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

The situation in particular log file posted by Max Buten shows that system is unable to apply retention policy, because of swapped drives:

Remove archive G:\ImageBackup20.tib operation started." module="100" time="1253533063" />
	<event code="17" id="2" level="3" line_tag="0xF35F747B3B21F904" message="File I/O error" module="4" time="1253533063">
		<field name="function" type="TIdentifier">
			DeleteFileW
		</field>
		<field name="filename" type="TString">
			\\?\G:\ImageBackup34.tib

So our program is unable to delete the file which does not exist. Please check if you're using correct external hard drive and please do not swap it within the same task.

Second situation is related to My Data backup of Documents and Settings folder under Windows Vista and Windows 7. There's no such folder at all, please do not backup it in such way, the program will always fail to do so. This is just a symbolic link which leads to real folder Users\Application Data\Documents. The clear description is available here. So if you want to perform such backup, please include this folder instead of link to Documents & Settings.

Thank you.

I am confused. I selected 2 folders & 2 files on the c drive to backup. I did not specify doc & settings or any part of docs & settings, but i still get the 'failed to backup file or folder'. So where did i do wrong? TIA

I'm having the same problem. I simply want to backup the Users folder, but keep getting this error. Please help - soon, before I need to recover files that are currently not being backed up!

Thanks very much.

[quote=Bill Marriott]

I get this each time I try to backup  my documents.

If running manually I can "skip" it and move on but scheduled job fails.

I have exactly the same problem twice when backing up my d:\drive.

First when I deleted a folder. Afterwards Acronis stalled and said it could not find the folder (no kidding?!?). After having found no help or solution to this I made a new full backup - but frankly I would hate to have to do that every time I delete a folder.

Now I have the same issue with my google desktop folder. Lots of files there cannot be backed up and I have "Ignore" that they are not backed up to get the proces done. Hmmmmm.... I got Acronis to automate this - not to sit through every backup from day to day. Any solution would be very helpful.

I include the deleted folder log file here:

Create Incremental Backup Archive</bold><endl/><tabpoint value=30><indent value=4>From: <indent value=10><textcolor value="navyblue">My Data</textcolor></indent><indent value=4><endl/>To file: <indent value=10><textcolor value="navyblue">"F:\My Backups\MyBackup__@date@.tib"</textcolor></indent><indent value=4><endl/>Compression: <indent value=10><textcolor value="navyblue">Normal</textcolor></indent><indent value=4><endl/></indent><endl/>" module="11" time="1258020203" />

[quote=Franz-Michael Mellbin][quote=Bill Marriott]

I get this each time I try to backup  my documents.

I have exactly the same problem twice when backing up my d:\drive.

LOL (actually its sad) - as I was typing this I got a third problem. Now Acronis could not back up several files in my my live mail folder (also on D:\).

Let me add another experience of the same error:
Acronis true image 2009 / backup of data files
I got the same error and at the end the task resulted "completed with errors"
The failed to backup file or folder error if "ignored" was applied to any file or folder included in the backup.
I checked the final backup file and I found that the backup was "perfect": i.e. Every file was stored correctly and available ...
Really I am confused.
I read all the previous messages and applied the "scheduler" updating, but the backup gave the same error result.

Any help/suggestions from Acronis in sight...?

Thanks, Alexander.
I use two external drives for my backup, taking one offsite and switching to the other every two weeks. I created a new Data Backup task for drive #2, and it works error free. At my next switch of external drives, I'll create a new Data backup task for drive #1. I'll have to activate the proper task each time I switch drives. - Max

If you have copied Windows from a back up, repaired it - directly or via recovery console then whatever Acronis does to the Windows configuration files - system,software,security,sam, default - to make them readable while they are in use seems to be overwritten and the back up fails.

For me uninstalling Acronis, reboot and reinstall did the trick.

I had a similar experience of backups failing with a message "Failed to backup file or folder ''. Specified file does not exist.: None" (see attached log file). On my installation I have managed to resolve this problem, which hopefully may help some of you guys (see details below):

I use a Dell Dimension E520 running Windows XP Professional, V5,1, SP3, and I normally do routine backups to a second internal drive, and copy them out on to external periodically (so that I don’t need to fiddle with cables to the external HDD every day).

On the same physical drive that contains the System partition (C:) I have another partition (F:) containing a single directory (“User Data”) to which I have pointed the “My Documents” folder, and for some months I have been satisfactorily backing up this “User Data” directory. I have recently had some data stored in a subdirectory under “User Data” which needed to be backed up daily, and I set up a new Acronis “My Data” backup job to back up this single directory and its contents. I could not get this new job to run without the error that everyone is reporting, and I noticed that Acronis seemed to have two symptoms in the Backup Wizard (where backup jobs are defined), namely:

a) When I started selecting or de-selecting subdirectories in My Documents it seemed to get confused with the multiple check boxes (ie. one for the physical folder and another for its “My Documents” alias).

b) Acronis did not seem to be able to “hold” the definition of any job that I attempted to define where I was backing up a sub-directory of a “My Documents” folder that was itself defined to be elsewhere than the Windows XP default location. I believe (at least in my case) that this failure to hold the definition of the source selection to be backed up directly caused the subsequent problem.

My workaround for both these problems was to use the “Add New Category” button on the “Source Selection“ page of the Wizard, and then defining the source to be backed up by using the checkbox of my new user-defined Category, and not any of the pre-existing ones. At this point everything started behaving properly, the only slight snag being that a new user-defined category can consist of just one directory, so anyone wanting to back up more than one directory would need to create a user-defined category for each.

Hopefully – if this is all confirmed by other users – it might also lead to a fix. Good luck!!

Created: Thursday, July 29, 2010 3:00:01 AM

Details: Scheduler failed to run task because of error 2 (Failed to find the file (folder) or the key (value) in the registry.).

More information can be found at: http://kb.acronis.com/errorcode/
Event code: 0x00090002

The backup task referenced in the Log was deleted weeks ago, but still trys to run. Possibly a task greated in a user profile that was deleted.

Hello Keith,

Thank you for posting and welcome to our forum. I will definitely help you with this issue.

You can try getting rid of that task by following just the first step in Yana's post.

If you need additional help, please let me know.

Thank you.