Backup Cleanup Doesn't Work
This is really an unacceptable bug. It shows a lack of product testing on Acronis's part. Please do better.
I have setup my backups to keep X old chains and deletes chains older than that. These work for a while and then ultimately fail with a "Failed to exclusively access a backup file during consolidation"
3 different attempts to make this work have failed. I recreated a project from scratch and it still fails eventually.
The error message: "Consolidate Backup Archive Location: "\\SCHARFSTATION\Backup\Tombo-C-Drive\C-Drive_full_b11_s1_v1.tib" Destination: "\\SCHARFSTATION\Backup\Tombo-C-Drive\C-Drive_full_b11_s1_v1_19F8D09C-7BD3-4021-8C00-EA5DAE2DC60D.tib" gives the clue. It is attempting to cleanup a file "full_b11_s1_v1" that doesn't exist, and never existed.
When I created a new project the first backup it attempts to create is "full_b12_s1_v1".
So Acronis is not resetting it's backup counter in the b field , even when I create a new project from scratch, and this causes it to eventually fail when trying to cleanup old backups.
It's hard to believe this wasn't found in product testing.
Another bug is that when instructed to recreate a new backup every 7 days, it created 3 incremental backups and then did a full backup the next day, then went into consolidation failure mode, the following day. Once again showing the product can't even get simple backup counting working correctly.
I don't like debugging programs that I bought by reverse engineering log files, and it is scary to think what other bugs are in this program.
Feedback such as "please uninstall and reinstall" or "don't use these options we were pretending worked" are not desired here. What is desired is for Acronis to properly test their product.
I suppose I will need to search the registry to find out where this b field is stored and clear it manually, or tech support could tell me where to look.
I don't like to be harsh like this, but I have used this product for 10 years. Do better.
Full log file:
1 True Image 2/1/2016 2:00:02 AM Backup reserve copy attributes: format tib; need_reserve_backup_copy false;
2 True Image 2/1/2016 2:00:02 AM Operation C-Drive started by schedule.
3 True Image 2/1/2016 2:00:02 AM Operation description: Stage Description.
4 True Image 2/1/2016 2:00:13 AM Backup reserve copy attributes: format tib; need_reserve_backup_copy false;
5 True Image 2/1/2016 2:00:13 AM Operation: Backup
6 True Image 2/1/2016 2:00:13 AM Priority changed to Low.
7 True Image 2/1/2016 2:00:13 AM Create Backup Archive From: NTFS (H:), Crucial M4 SSD (C:) To file: "\\SCHARFSTATION\Backup\Tombo-C-Drive\C-Drive.tib" Compression: Normal
8 True Image 2/1/2016 2:00:13 AM Pending operation 166 started: 'Creating partition image'.
9 True Image 2/1/2016 2:00:14 AM Writing full version to file: C-Drive_full_b11_s1_v1.tib
10 True Image 2/1/2016 2:00:14 AM Pending operation 166 started: 'Creating partition image'.
11 True Image 2/1/2016 2:25:11 AM Pending operation 166 started: 'Creating partition image'.
12 True Image 2/1/2016 2:25:12 AM The following backups have been successfully created: "\\SCHARFSTATION\Backup\Tombo-C-Drive\C-Drive_full_b11_s1_v1.tib"
13 True Image 2/1/2016 2:25:12 AM Consolidate Backup Archive Location: "\\SCHARFSTATION\Backup\Tombo-C-Drive\C-Drive_full_b11_s1_v1.tib" Destination: "\\SCHARFSTATION\Backup\Tombo-C-Drive\C-Drive_full_b11_s1_v1_19F8D09C-7BD3-4021-8C00-EA5DAE2DC60D.tib"
14 True Image 2/1/2016 2:25:12 AM Consolidate Backup Archive Location: "\\SCHARFSTATION\Backup\Tombo-C-Drive\C-Drive_full_b11_s1_v1.tib" Destination: "\\SCHARFSTATION\Backup\Tombo-C-Drive\C-Drive_full_b11_s1_v1_19F8D09C-7BD3-4021-8C00-EA5DAE2DC60D.tib"
15 True Image 2/1/2016 2:25:12 AM Failed to exclusively access a backup file during consolidation. Make sure the file is not opened in other applications.
16 True Image 2/1/2016 2:25:12 AM Failed to open data stream. Try to remove the backup from the list, add it again by clicking 'Browse for backup' and recreate the backup settings.
17 True Image 2/1/2016 2:25:12 AM
18 True Image 2/1/2016 2:25:12 AM The operation is not supported.
19 True Image 2/1/2016 2:25:12 AM Failed to open data stream. Try to remove the backup from the list, add it again by clicking 'Browse for backup' and recreate the backup settings.
20 True Image 2/1/2016 2:25:12 AM Failed to exclusively access a backup file during consolidation. Make sure the file is not opened in other applications.
21 True Image 2/1/2016 2:25:12 AM Failed to exclusively access a backup file during consolidation. Make sure the file is not opened in other applications.
22 True Image 2/1/2016 2:25:12 AM Failed to open data stream. Try to remove the backup from the list, add it again by clicking 'Browse for backup' and recreate the backup settings.
23 True Image 2/1/2016 2:25:12 AM
24 True Image 2/1/2016 2:25:12 AM The operation is not supported.
25 True Image 2/1/2016 2:25:12 AM Failed to exclusively access a backup file during consolidation. Make sure the file is not opened in other applications.
26 True Image 2/1/2016 2:25:12 AM Failed to exclusively access a backup file during consolidation. Make sure the file is not opened in other applications.
27 True Image 2/1/2016 2:25:12 AM Failed to exclusively access a backup file during consolidation. Make sure the file is not opened in other applications.
28 True Image 2/1/2016 2:25:12 AM Failed to exclusively access a backup file during consolidation. Make sure the file is not opened in other applications.
29 True Image 2/1/2016 2:25:12 AM Failed to open data stream. Try to remove the backup from the list, add it again by clicking 'Browse for backup' and recreate the backup settings.
30 True Image 2/1/2016 2:25:12 AM
31 True Image 2/1/2016 2:25:12 AM The operation is not supported.
32 True Image 2/1/2016 2:25:12 AM Operation has completed with errors.
This bug has apparently been around for at least 2 years.
https://forum.acronis.com/forum/55459#comment-175994
Please tell me this is going to get reported as a BUG to the development team and they will take all of the 10 minutes required to fix such a basic problem. I've done my part. Acronis needs to do theirs.
Thank you for sharing, but you should share it with the Acronis staff through the feedback feature, or you should file a ticket. Another user wouldn't be able to fix the bug you have discovered.
Hello, Tom.
Is/are the new plan(s) you have created exactly the same as the one that was causing all the trouble? If so, have you noticed any issues after the reinstall?
Do you by any chance have a System Report from before the uninstall? If not - could you maybe create a new one now and attach it here?
I purged everything from the system on the clean install. There were some accumulated files in the Acronis folder that were 8 years old which may or may not have confused the software.
I haven't had any problems since a clean reinstall, but I also gave up on the "Keep size < X GB" and am using the "Store no more than X recent versions" in the hope it will not trigger consolidation nightmares. It also hasn't go to the point where it will start deleting old backup chains yet, so it is TBD whether it will correctly handle this. This will start happening in about 3 weeks.
From the software point of view it seemed the consoldiation/cleanup code was very fragile and wasn't able to handle unexpected events very gracefully.
I did create a new system report, but I think it holds a bit too much personal info to post. If you have a specific question I can answer that.
Tom,
This link could help. The cleanup does work but only if your are very careful not to make any changes in the original setup.
This will show you examples and illustrations of when you can expect the cleanup to make its first delete oldest chain.
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/100416
I appreciate the comment, but realistically Acronis should just make this work correctly according to user expectations which I do not think is asking a lot.
A common problem (I have had this occur more than once) is when the backup device runs out of space, even when using a cleanup scheme. So a user will want to go in and tell it to save only 5 backup chains instead of 10 chains, for example. The user expects the software to deal with this.
Alternately the user will just manually delete the oldest 5 chains, and then go change the backup settings.
The advice here is to create a brand new backup set and then delete all existing backup chains, leaving yourself exposed to failure. Either this or you need to babysit old and new backup schemes while the transition takes place. And as documented above, creating a new scheme did not solve the problem in my case.
I'm a professional programmer and I know it isn't that hard to make this work correctly. Specifically the product failing and rendering the backup scheme unrecoverable when it can't find a file it is trying to delete (hey, it's already gone, so what?) is a level 10 bug IMO. When settings are editable in software, the user expects the software to properly handle setting changes (right?).
What bothers me the most is there seems to be no committment to fix these things as far as I can tell.
Hello Everyone,
Issues with cleanup settings not being applied under certain conditions and failing consolidation are reported to QA team. After these problems are reproduced on our side, they will be passed over to the development team for fixing.
Tom, thank you for reporting the problem and sharing your thoughts.
Regards,
Slava