Hi Joseph,

I've never personally used non-stop backups so I'm not sure of the configuration options.  However, in regards to the issues, it sounds like you did an Acronis upgrade from a previous version instead of a Clean ATIH install?  Although this is supported by Acronis, several others in the forum are reporting issues with upgrades as well.  In most cases, removing ATIH completey, running the 2015 cleanup tool (linked in my signature), rebooting and installing from scratch seems to clear up problems.  However, doing so will also require that you create new backup tasks and you should start with new backup sets using their own unique fille names (don't re-use old names or you may have trouble again).  I recently did all of this on a Win10x64 Pro personal system of mine that had ATIH 2015 in order to install 2016 and all was well for a bit, but even after all that, ATIH 2016 crashed on it.  I repeated the process, but this time, I moved all of my old backups off the backup drive and formatted it for good measure and so far, things seem to be running fine, but time will tell. I have ATIH 2016 v6027 on another Win 10 x64Pro VM that has not had this problem, and I also have it running on Win 7x64Pro with no issues (so far) either so it may be something unique with this particular systems OS install, third party applications, or possibly even hardware.  I did send a system report to technical support in hopes that they may be able to decipher the actual cause, but for now, I'm hoping the issue is gone.  

Again though, I don't use non-stop backup as I cannot think of too many personal systems that would require this type of continual backup.  I would recommend that unless you absolutely need continuous backups around the clock, you consider using incrementals as often as every 2 hours, but perhaps less frequently than that (maybe twice a day?) if you feel comfortable doing so.  I think you'll find overall system peformance to be a bit better and reliability with the Acronis Application to be better as well.  If you haven't already, please take a look at the special requirements for Non-stop backups (particularly, that they merge into a single backup each day so earlier recoveries are not possible for that day once that's happened, and that you can only reover from within Acronis in non-stop backups, where-as you can use Windows File Explorer in every other type (full, incremental, differenential, etc). 

Using Acronis Nonstop Backups

I am very far from being an expert but I would like to state what works for me. I never make incrementals etc.., only full image backups twice a week, I also use Non Stop Backup to backup, amongst other files, my Outlook 2013 .pst file, I find this gives me best chance of recovering my latest emails in the event of a disaster. I forgot to mention that I am running TI 2014, Windows 10 64 bit and I point my image backups and Non Stop Backups to my D: drive. Has worked for me for years. My apologies if I am stating the obvious.

No one can say what is the right scheme for someone else - if your scheme has been working for you, no sense in changing things up if it's meeting your needs

The only thing I can point out is that ATIH 2014 is not supported with Windows 10.  The last version of ATIH 2015 v6613 brought Windows 10 support.  ATIH 2016 is the ongoing support with Windows 10 and recent upgrades of it such as version 1511.  Might have better luck if you're able to upgrade.  However, there are others in the forum still having issues with Windows 10 and the current v6027 of ATIH 2016 specicially with non-stop backups as well.  

56196: Acronis Products: Windows 10 Support

' Might have better luck if you're able to upgrade' I am interested as to why you think I should upgrade? It all works perfectly. I did upgrade to 2015, hated the interface, I also bought 2016 but applied for refund, 2014 suits me perfectly but I appreciate your comments.

I confused your note as being the OP's originally.  If 2014 is working with Win10, good deal.  It's not supported, but if it's working for you, nothing wrong with that. 

Joseph,

I suspect that what you describe is expected behavior with the nonstop feature.  This feature is an add on to the backup functions of the application so the scheduling rules do not apply as nonstop backup has it's own built in schedule.

You say that the feature works for a couple of days and then gets back to this state, what does that mean exactly?  Is the nonstop backup still continuing to backup files? 

I am not that familiar with the nonstop feature myself but if you suspect that the feature has stopped working I think you could easily determine that to be so by watching Windows Task Manager.  The Service that runs nonstop backup is called afcdp.  Nonstop backup scans your selected backup source selection every 5 minutes for data changes.  When each 5 minute interval is reached you should see the afcdp service become active.  If that is not happening then I would say yes the feature is not functioning.  

I can see that I messed up in my original post. I didn't ask any questions (other than why is the version information on the accounts page and not on the help page - which nobody addressed - but I really didn't expect anybody to have an answer for that).

First, as I said, I'm using ATI2016, build 6027 on Windows 10 64-bit.

My questions:

1. How can I delete the current backup that might or might not be a non-stop backup (depends on where you look whether it thinks it is non-stop or not)? This was originally a non-stop backup, but when it failed, I changed it to "do not schedule."

2. Why do nonstop backup jobs fail after several days? This was a clean install on a new Windows 10 installation (since no upgrade path worked properly for me). I have also uninstalled and reinstalled. I know the backup jobs fail - there is no question about that.

3. I have a daily backup working, so suggestions about alternate backup methodologies are not relevant to this thread.

Thanks for your help.

Joe

Joseph Pizzi:
I have some of the same problems as you do with nonstop backups. It randomly shows up as never performed, but when I go and check the actual backup files, it may have all the files, and most of the time a reasonably recent backup.

Other times it just seems to stop randomly, and when I check, it may show the last backup as performed several days ago. Sometimes I get a message in the corner saying it has stopped, while other times it just stops without telling me at all. At one point my backup files had been corrupted and ATI wasn't doing anything. I had to delete the backups and start over.

I'm beginning to think that this product is a heap of crap. When it does work, it have to admit that it actually works quite well and does its job in the background without any performance loss. I don't even notice that it is running, so performance wise it is great. But it has all these little annoying hiccups where it randomly stops or does other weird things, or doesn't show information about the status of the backups like in your case. I feel that I cannot rely on it anymore. I don't want to have to watch over it all the time, the purpose of this software is to "Set it and forget it" and trust the program to have a recent copy of your files on the fateful day when you do suffer a data loss. But that's not the way I see it when I have to monitor it to make sure it's still functioning. When I checked just now, it hasn't done any backups for the last 5 days for example, and it is set to non-stop.

And there's no wonder they stuck the version number in the wrong spot, the user interface is garbage. It's made to look "elegant and simplistic" to the novice user, but the reality is it's not very user friendly at all, and it does not give you any relevant information or any settings to play around with. Once you have set the backups the first time, it does you nothing good at all, at least if you don't use the cloud services. Sometimes it just doesn't even start at all when you try to launch it, however maybe that's a good thing, because as I said, there's nothing there to see or change anyway once it has been set.

I purchased this a few months ago when ATI 2016 was fairly new and I had the same issues back then, but since ATI 2016 was fairly new I expected those issues to be fixed in updates. However they haven't released any update at all since I got it. Not sure if they ever will? I hope the people at Acronis will read this. 

Joseph Pizzi wrote:

I can see that I messed up in my original post. I didn't ask any questions (other than why is the version information on the accounts page and not on the help page - which nobody addressed - but I really didn't expect anybody to have an answer for that).

First, as I said, I'm using ATI2016, build 6027 on Windows 10 64-bit.

My questions:

1. How can I delete the current backup that might or might not be a non-stop backup (depends on where you look whether it thinks it is non-stop or not)? This was originally a non-stop backup, but when it failed, I changed it to "do not schedule."

2. Why do nonstop backup jobs fail after several days? This was a clean install on a new Windows 10 installation (since no upgrade path worked properly for me). I have also uninstalled and reinstalled. I know the backup jobs fail - there is no question about that.

3. I have a daily backup working, so suggestions about alternate backup methodologies are not relevant to this thread.

Thanks for your help.

Joe

I think you're going to be better off completely recreating your backup task.  Once you've created a task and started backups, modifying it for any reason, usually leads to corruption or problems down the road.  This seems to be the case now.  Hopefully, if you create a new task, with a unique name, and have the backups going to a unique location (new folder - don't use the existing if possible) thigns will be back to normal.  

I have not used non-stop backups - I see why they would be useful for some, but I really don't see it being a feasilbe and reliable option for most.  It is resource intensive and the constant scanning and updating of a database every 5 minutes is bound to mess up at some point because of all of the background Windows updates, patches, third party interaction, reliance on Windows VSS, etc.  Also:

1) Consolidation happens each day so you still only end up with a single recovery point per day which kind of defeats the purpose of non-stop.  Consolidation then happens to a weekly each week, so you can only recover to that point in time once that consolidation has taken place.  The only benefit of nonstop backups is for that specific day, before any consolidation has taken place.

2) Nonstop badckups are the only backup that must be recovered from within Acronis where all others can double click .TIBs and navigate and copy paste as well

3) I don't think nonstop backup does it's own grooming - the documentation says it consolidates each day, then consolidates into a weekly each week and keeps weeklys until the disk is full  - doesn't mention being able to clean up older versions to make room for newer ones.  

Instead, maybe use a daily incremetnal backup that runs every 2 hours if you need it often.  It won't be quite as often as a nonstop, but you don't have those consolidation limitations and actually end up with more recovery points as a result.  It seems like a lot of people using nonstop backups use them for PST's and email files.  Honestly though, why not use IMAP instead of POP which will leave your emails on the server as well so that your only email backups are not tied to the local system?  IMAP along with incrementals will give you better chance of email recovery than any POP or nonstop backup in the grand scheme of things.  These are just suggestions, but I think you'll be happier with performance and reliability in the long run if you try them instead.

As for not being able to delete your existing backup, can you send a screenshot of what it shows?  I'm not sure why you could not select it and then remove the backup (forget from database or remove settings and existing backups).  This might need technical support assistance, but screenshots may help us in the forum as well. 

It is also hard to say why nonstop backups do not always run.  They rely on Windows VSS though - perhaps VSS is stopped or in use - do you have pending patches or updates - how often do you reboot and does rebooting generally get the nonstop working again?  Again this may require a technical support case with a local Acronis System log to help narrow down the trouble though - systems are very unique due to hardware, OS, customizations, third party applications, etc so some may have better experience with nonstop backup than others. 

Glad the daily backup is working.  My only suggestion is to not use nonstop and instead use incrementals to offset the nonstop backup and make incrementals as often as needed if nonstop is proving to not be reliable.

Bobbo_3C0X1 wrote:

I think you're going to be better off completely recreating your backup task.  

Great idea, but you can only have one non-stop task, and whatever routine that does the checking thinks this is one.

Bobbo_3C0X1 wrote:

As for not being able to delete your existing backup, can you send a screenshot of what it shows?

I can select the backup, and select Delete, but nothing happens. No change in any screen indications.

Here are the screenshots that show it claiming to be a nonstop backup and then not one.

Are you not able to delete the existing non-stop backup using the drop down menu like the attached screenshot.  I just set a test job up and am able to select the delete option.  I have a feeling you will need to remove it completely and then create a new backup job instead.

If this is not working, I would suggest trying to to delete the existing backup database and letting it create a new one and start fresh.  If that doesn't work, ou may have to uninstall, reboot, run the ATIH 2015 clean tool (#3 in my signature), reboot again and start fresh.  

That's correct, I cannot delete the job using the delete option as you show in your screenshot. The selection is there, but has no effect.

How do I delete the backup database?

Does the ATIH 2015 tool work on ATI 2016?

[deleted - duplicate post]

Deleting the backup database - see this forum:  https://forum.acronis.com/forum/112833  .... Delete database files in C:\ProgramData\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Database.  If you're up for it though, I'd recommend cleaning up and installing from scratch...

Yes, the ATIH 2015 cleanup tool works for 2016.  You'd uninstall all ATIH products in control panel first, reboot, then log back in and run the cleanup tool with "run as administrator" access.  After clean, reboot one more time for good measure.  Then go back and install the latest version of ATIH from your downloads section under your account.  License it and then go back and install the Acronis media add-on from the downloads in your account.  Then grab the universal restore add-on from downloads in your account and install that.  You'd have a "fresh" install and can start configuring backups from scratch... note that Acronis will automatically find your old backup .tibs and try to add them too - I don't like that feature, so you may want to move them offline first. 

Joseph Pizzi wrote:

That's correct, I cannot delete the job using the delete option as you show in your screenshot. The selection is there, but has no effect.

How do I delete the backup database?

Does the ATIH 2015 tool work on ATI 2016?

I realise that this question is a few  months old. But it seems to be a perennial and I have yet to find a satisfactory answer.

I ask because the same issue has hit me.

Clean installation of ATI2016 in a new PC that is about two months old.

Non-stop backup stopped working soon after I installed the software. (Someone in another message accurately describes this bit of ATI2016 as "beta" software. Actually, I have seen alpha software more capable than this.)

The latest answer to this question suggests deleting the database of existing backups.

Is that the only solution?

If I do that can I rebuild it in some way so that I can retrieve the backups that do work?

Deleting the database does not delete your backups.  It just forces Acronis to recreate the background database, but your backup jobs will still be there when you launch the application again.  NSB has been problematic for sometime.  I can't recommend it at this time.  Incremental and Diff backups work really well though.  I also find 0 issues with backup and restore using the offline bootable media.  I've used Retospect, Crashplan, Ghost, Windows Backup, Macrium and just about everything else, and find backup issues "in Windows' with all of them too.  Most, even Acronis, work just fine when they are fresh installs.  Overtime with the app updates, Windows updates, Windows upgrades, different software combos, etc. end up taking a dump at some point in time and then starting clean again gets them going.  I can't say I find this unique to Acronis though.  I also don't think NSB is quite up to snuff either (based off of forum threads on it).  Defintely submit feedback and sumbit a system report with it before you do any cleanup or testing though.  You may also want to disable VSS for your NSB backup and let it use it's proprietary snapapi backup method instead.  Local Windows VSS issues can be problematic in their own right and aCronis relies on it by default.

Disable VSS 3 ways

The first method, disabling VSS for a speficic backup task would be the one I'd try.  If NSB springs to life for that job with VSS disabled for that run, then it is probably related to vSS on your system.  If it doesn't help at all, well, it's probably something else then, but a good place to start and fairly easy to test.

I realize this is kind of a piggyback, but I am experiencing the same problem at this moment. I have had an NSB job set up for a few weeks, and it always comes up with a message "nonstop backup is stopped." So I decided to get rid of it.

First I tried changing the schedule from Nonstop to Do Not Schedule, but that didn't work. It still showed "Next backup" as "nonstop".

Then I tried deleting the NSB job. As the OP stated, the Delete option is there, but when I click on it my target disk usage goes to 100%, the CPU varies from 0-40%, and the UI shows "Calculating time remaining..." as if it were performing a backup. This has gone on for nearly 30 minutes. The activity just now stopped, but the job is still there and still listed (at the top of the window) as "nonstop."

Looks like this is a serious broken bit of ATI2016.

It is interesting to see seriously expert users warning against this bit of the program, here and in other discussions.

I wonder if we will see any official response on this.

Bobbo_3C0X1 wrote:

Deleting the database does not delete your backups.  It just forces Acronis to recreate the background database, but your backup jobs will still be there when you launch the application again.

I guess my question was poorly expressed.

I didn't expect deleting the database to delete backups, that seems to be another problem area for ATI2016.

My question is really that I have a list of Backups. One of them is "stuck" and will not go away whatever way I try to delete it. But there are others there that do what I want. Will they still be there after I delete the database? Or do I have to jump through all the hoops I had to to set them up as I wanted them?

Recreating the database will not impact the existing backup list - they will all still be there.  Hopefully, with the database being recreated, you will have the ability to remove the backups you don't want/need though.

In order to rename the backup database or manually delete a script, you'll need to first disable the Acronis services (4 of them in control panel >>> administrative tools >>> services (right click services and run as administrator)  

C:\ProgramData\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Database           rename to database.old or whatever you want, so that you still have it, just in case... 

Then go back and start the services and launch Acronis and the scripts won't be there anymore.  Hopefully, you'll be able to go into the app and remove them then.  

ALTERNATIVELY, if renaming the database still doesn't allow you to delete them, go to ...

C:\ProgramData\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Scripts            inside are files with long names.  Open them in notepad and look for the backup job name in it.  You can then delete the file to permanetly remove them... or rename them by adding .bak or .old at the end if you want to keep it, just in case...

ALTERNATIVELY, you can use the schedulemanager app. ***This is probably the best method to use...***

To get a list of scheduled tasks:

get list

To delete a single task:

task [task number]

task delete

For example:

task 1-12

task delete