Active Protection permission list
I turned on Active Protection. I checked "Protect Acronis True Image files from ransomware." I added a program I wrote to the permission list. The program is called BackupDeleteOld.exe. The program deletes old .tib files on the backup drive as needed to free up space before running a new backup.
When BackupDeleteOld.exe runs, Active Protection stops it from deleting the old .tib file, even though the program is in the permission list. How can I protect tib files from ransomware but still allow my legitimate exe file?
I have Acronis True Image 2018 build 15470.
Thanks Steve, this is a super useful solution.
But why does ATI have a screen that lets me add applications to a permission list if it ignores the permission list?
Mike, ATI 2018 was the first iteration of the AAP feature (other than a brief appearance in a special edition of ATI 2017 New Generation), so it isn't as fully developed as later versions for handling of exclusions / permissions.
The other issue is that in ATI 2018 Acronis assume that any attempt to modify the files or folders associated with the application is potential malware attacks and prevent it! Again, this is fixed in later versions with the evolution of AAP!
One final comment, you may need to consider getting yourself a larger backup storage drive to avoid having to play these games and delete files in this way. Acronis introduced a new 'Clean up versions' tool in ATI 2019 onwards to help deal with the issues that can arise from users deleting files via Explorer etc, and doing such manual deletions outside of ATI in ATI 2020 & later will definitely cause problems!
Hey Steve, thanks again. I used your solution with last night's backup (turn Active protection off, delete old files, and then back on) and it worked. Excellent.
No matter how big the backup drive, it will eventually run out of space unless old backups are deleted. What does the 'Clean up versions' tool in 2019 and 2020 do that 2018 doesn't? 2018 lets you automatically delete backups older than a certain age, or over a certain quantity, neither of which is what I want. I want to delete old backups only as needed to make space for new backups. Does 2019 or 2020 do that? I'm aware of 2020's .tibx problem of linked backups that can't simply be deleted, which is why I haven't upgraded.
Mike, take a look at KB 61844: Acronis True Image 2019, 2020 and 2021: How to delete old backups for information on the new tool in these versions.
Personally, I haven't ever had any issues with using the automatic cleanup rules to keep my files managed but I only ever use the 'Store no more than X recent version chains' for my backups and set 'X' to be such that I know there will always be sufficient free space on my backup drives.
The key factor with automatic cleanup is to understand that you always need to be able to create one more new full backup before cleanup is actioned, so in my case, I typically have X set to 2 recent chains (of 5 or 6 incrementals) with plenty of headroom to start off a new chain by a full backup which allows the oldest chain to be deleted.