Acronis 2020 - Single version backups, time stamp issues!
I am a big fan of Acronis as it has rescued my system's on many occasions...
I've been using Acronis 2016 since its release and just upgraded to 2020...
I have found some issues that may need addressing, or maybe I'm overlooking something.
The time stamps are exactly 5 hours behind when doing a restore with a rescue USB bootable.
Although the backups in the App show the correct time.
(and yes my bios clock and system clocks are proper)
Also, If I create single version scheme backups, say backup_C, and keep multiple backups in a folder, backup_C-001, backup_C-002, ect... when doing a restore, it will only let me choose the latest time stamp, it will not allow choosing older time stamps. And yes the small 12k original file is always in the folder.
The only way I can achieve this is to remove the newer backups from the folder, making sure the original small 12k file stays with it, then it will allow me to choose the older time stamp in the calendar to restore.
If multiple backups are stored in the same folder, the calendar will only show 1 time stamp, the very latest backup!
I spent about 4 hours frigging around with this (way to much wasted time), and am fairly confident ATI needs to be addressed for allowing a restore from different time stamps when having multiple backups stored in the same folder. (Or am I missing something) besides money out of my pocket!
And please don't suggest using other types of backups... I've always used single version scheme backup's in the past with 2016, and never have had any issues. I'm married to it and just prefer it.
The only reason I had to upgrade, was because I purchased a new system that wasn't compatible with ATI 2016.
oh ya, making the bootable usb was 3 hours of fun as well... trying to figure out the propper way to create a bootable usb that would recognise my new drives... had to download special drivers and add them to a WinPE, as well as downloading and trying to figure out which WinPE options to select... kind of a nightmare for a novice.
Defanetly not a purchase turnkey system!
Frank.
Hi Steve, thanks for the reply...
I created the Simple: created based on your Windows Recovery Environment for WinPE media.
Knowing the times stamps are created at a certain time, then doing a test restore several minutes later... shows exactly 5 hour difference behind on the backup file. Every time. This really has me stumped.
For example, in your pic of the calendar which reads 11:31:51, I know the time I created the backup will be 16:31:51.
This has to be a bug?
"It is not recommended to remove any backup files using the new .tibx format, even with the single version scheme as there are dependencies between files, plus this should not be necessary to allow selecting the correct restore point / file."
And i would totally agree with you here... but I fell upon this by accident and experimenting, by, like I mentioned, just leaving an old backup in a folder by itself along with the small 12k tibx file that gets made originally.
The system seems to restore from the older backup file without any issues. and the right date/time (well 5 hours behind) is allowed to be selected. Its the only date on the calendar.
And as I mentioned before, if i just move all the backups in one place, ie: a backup drive, and try to restore from one of the older files, The calendar ONLY has one date on it, the most recent backup. (but 5 hours behind).
Remember , this is the single version backup style, and when it backs up, it erases the previous backup replacing it. But before hand, I manually copy/paste the old backup to another folder, so that I can keep older restore points in case needed.
I have always achieved this without a hitch with Acronis TIB 2016, and it has saved my system on several occasions.
And now for a new other issue... I always did my restores from a booted usb, so I tried to restore once from within the Windows desktop, it mentioned to close all other programs and a reboot was needed, which I followed with...
so when it rebooted it just popped up an error screen and did not do the restore, even though it says "Complete".
So I have no idea why it won't restore from within windows itself.
see attachment with pic of error.
thanks!
Edit: Just as a side note, the small 12k tibx file that gets 1st created, never gets edited with any additional backups I do, it still shows the original date it was created, so I'm not exactly sure why Acronis decided to have this file which is needed, maybe for different types of backups? but as far as Single version backups, this file never gets edited, I've checked it everytime and the creation date and modification date never changes.
Sorry, file didn't work 1st time...
Frank, the error from your screen image shows "Disk is not found" which can be caused because the restart from the ATI app in Windows launches a small Linux OS environment which does not have support for the disk involved!
The time stamp issue is definitely a frustration but should not prevent the backups from being used for a successful recovery.
If you want to create totally independent full backup files or get back to how Single version worked in earlier versions of ATI then there are a couple of options that will work though these are not provided by Acronis!
See forum topic: How to create a Disk backup as .tib (not .tibx) which will create a new backup task using the older .tib format in the Windows ATI 2020 GUI and use the same rules as previous versions.
The second option is to either copy, move or rename the new Full backup file before the task that created it runs for a second time and before the small 12kb metadata .tibx file is created. Renaming the file extension from .tibx to .~tibx will stop the Acronis Active Protection from complaining about actions taken for these files. The extension would need to be restored in order to use the backup for recovery etc.
Hi Steve,
Great information, thanks... it seems you really know your way around this application.
I guess the software isn't smart enough to include the drive configuration files needed when doing a restore and when it makes the Linux boot file.
However, when I use a USB, and do a restore from startup, the app is like lightning, it completes it real fast...
so its no big deal, it would just be nice to have the option to restore right within windows as it is supposed to.
As for editing of the files to achieve the old way, I did read that whole post... I kind of wonder if any updates get applied, that the file that was edited to .tib, will it revert back to .tibx? I suppose you have hve to check it if an update does get applied.
anyways, thanks for the great info... i'm learning :)
Frank
Frank, the Linux boot environment is a pre-canned virtual machine with no changes to take into account machine differences etc. This is akin to using the Acronis Startup Recovery Manager which makes the same Linux OS environment available at boot time via the F11 key.
The trick with modifying the .tibx script .tib.tis files is still working fine with both 2020 & 2021 and takes advantage of the fact that some users will upgrade from say ATI 2019 or 2018 and bring forward their existing .tib backup tasks. These ported tasks continue to make .tib files under the older file format system, so there have been no moves by Acronis (to date) to try to force the use of .tibx file format on users!
There have been lots of complaints from users via the forums about limitations brought in with .tibx files, most especially new dependencies and lost function, so don't see this changing any time soon! ATI 2021 was intended to address some of these issues but has by no means given back all the function lost that was available with .tib files so far!