Problems with Scheduled Backups
Like most people on this forum, I have been a long time user of Acronis, we used ATH2010 for many years with no problems, but had to update to ATH2015. This latest version of the software is the biggest piece of crap that I've had to deal with in over 30 years in the software industry. It's appears that for some reason they threw away all the code that worked reliably and decided to have an intern rewrite it.
Enough venting, my latest issue is scheduling a simple task to run once a day to create a Full backup of a disk (2 partitions) and store it on a 64 GB USB Stick. We set the automatic cleanup to keep at most 2 copies of the backup. I have followed Grover's instructions: I create new tasks, always give them new names, never edit a task, and I press OK on all dialogs. What happens is either
a) The scheduled time comes and the task never runs. If I start Acronis, it will say "the task is postponed, press Backup Now to run the backup." Pressing Backup Now does nothing, there is no feedback. If you look in the Log folder, there are no new logs created. Sometimes if you reboot the machine at this point, it will do a backup before shutting down or it will do a backup after it reboots. Sometimes you can never get the task to run.
b) The scheduled time comes and it does a backup, but then it goes into an endless loop and creates a backup every 20 minutes until the destination drive is full, never deleting any of the old backups.
Before changing anything, I delete all the old backups and remove the old tasks from the list, but it appears that some data is remaining. Is there anyway to delete all the old tasks from ATH2015 and the flush the scheduler? Is there anyway to see what the Acronis scheduler is scheduled to do? Can you safely delete the files in the Database directory?
Some issues with usb sticks or drives can be the timeout settings in the Device Manager/Universal Serial Bus Contoller/
Either the Generick USB Hub, and/or USB Root Hub
On all hubs listings, click the Power Management options
Uncheck the "All the computer to turn off device to save power."
Also, there is the Contro Panel/Power Management which has settings to run off usb devices, these Windows Power Management settings must be disabled.
Also, inside each task,there is the Scheduler options which includes the
ADVANCED SETTINGS
Be sure the "RUN THE BACKUP ONLOY WHEN THE COMPUTER IS IDLE" is UNCHECKED.
Also, I prefer to uncheck the setting to 'RUN AT STARTUP IF MISSED"
The flash drive is normally FAT32 file system which separates backup files into 4GB segments.
I prefer to format my flash drives as NTFS so my backups are one large file.
Also, I assign Drive letters x or y or z to the flash drives and then create my task to the desired usb drive.
Post a sample of one backup scheme which is not working.
Be sure the scheme is named a custom scheme.
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GH64. 71342: 2015 How to save a non-scheduled task.
Depending upon the type of backup scheme you wish to create, here is an example of each type. These can be set up for Disk image, or Partiton, or Files-folders backups. These example show how to set up automatic cleanup so the program will do the deletion after it reaches your set goal of how many chains to retain.
Editing an existing task is not recommended. Better to start with a new task using a new non-identical task name and point to a new storage sub-folder so each task has it own storage folder/sub-folder.
Hello all,
this is not for a solution, this is just my comment about the ATI Software.
Although I´m using it for some years (2011) (good luck I never need a restore) it is an unreliable software.
For a backup software actually a no go!
I experienced all of the above phanomens and more and was always hoping it becomes better. No way.
Which software allows an user to configure it wrongly and then we get support not to handle it like this.
Unbelievable!
However, after loosing all of my scheduled backup schemes having added a new backup policy (again good look - not the *.tib files)
I re-installed ATI 2015, made a full backup of everything, I´ll calm down and reconfigure my schedules.
By the way I´m a MSCS (Diplom-Informatiker) and have work for more than 25 years in this profession
So, I totally agree with ScottB
Regrettably I´m not aware of a good backup software for private usage (=financially feasible).