True Image 2013 Backup Failure

Greetings Robert,

You've given us little information to go on. Are you saying you are attempting to back up approx. 383GB of data from one drive to another (disk) destination with approx. 818GB free space?

Are you performing this back up in windows or from bootable recovery media?

What file... cannot be backed up? Or are you merely saying the operation fails.

How about providing us with a System Report

This might help the MVP's home in on the problem.

The log file with the exact error message may also be helpful.

Thank You

Hello shadowsports

I have been trying various things and for some reason my log files have disappeared. I will try again and post the log file and system report.

In the meantime I will try to be more specific.

Briefly my process is:

1. Incremental backup onto the hard drive on my computer according to the schedule
2. Copy the backup file from the hard drive on my computer to an external hard drive for safekeeping.

So for 1, I am trying to copy 383GB of data to my hard drive that has 818GB free space. I received an error message in the middle of the backup that say Acronis cannot copy file XX without any explanation. If I skip the file I get the same error message on the next file and so on. If I terminate the process or if I ignore it eventually I get a log file that say insufficient disk space.

I also tried directing the same backup to my external harddrive which has almost 1TB free disk space with the same result.

Now here is the wierd thing. I created a new backup but with exactly the same files and tried this on another external harddrive with even less space than the other two above and it worked fine. Then I repeated this backup on my computer harddrive again and it worked fine. So something is definitely weird.

One thing I noticed. The "total size" shown in the GUI for the backup that failed is something like 1TB. The estimate size when I open the backup is around 383GB. I verified the size of the files on the disk and that seems correct. So why are the two sizes (1TB and 383GB) so different. The 1 TB does not make sense. I looked at some other backups and the "total size" are all over the map. Some make sense and some don't.

The one thing I know is that for some of these backups I edited the number of required incremental backups after the first full backup was created. Can this do something.

BTW What is the mimimum amount of free space required to do a backup. I assume its more than the backup itself, but how much more?

This is really driving me crazy. I would appreciate any help you can give me since I doubt the integrity of the backups.

Robert

Hello,

Further to my last post here is the system report.

Can somebody help me with these question

What is the minimum amount of free space required to do a backup? I assume its more than the backup itself, but how much more?

What is the meaning of "total size" on the backup name? Why is it so much bigger (sometimes) than the actual size?

Robert

Total size: The task lists the number of backups stored by this task. If you click on the location option 4 lines above the total size title, you have access to the storage folder. total size is the sum of the number of backups listed.

Minimum space: Not really specified anywhere but it will be about 65-70 % of used space depending upon type of files being included with the backup. Doc files will compress a lot whereas video, audio or pictures are already compressed so those type files will be almost normal size when stored in the backup.

Also note that the program when handling routine deletion of old backups, the program will create the replacement first before deleting the old file so you must always allow room for the temporary extra full backup otherwise you will get a disk full error.

Making changes to a working task can lead to unexpected results. Except for schedule changes when can be done from main menu without editing, the rule I practice is
If changes needed, stop using the old task and create a new task pointing to a new storage location.
I set up all my backup schemes with automatic cleanup such as this example:
GH12. Create Custom Incremental Backup Scheme. 6 Inc, Keep 4 chains. The 6-4 is user choice.

You mention copying the backup to an external disk. I am assuming you are referring to making a 2nd copy and windows is doing the copying without TrueImage involved in the copying??

The size discrepancy could be Acronis data base messed up, or it could be that Windows size reporting is confused. Have you checked all your partitions for disk errors lately on the source disk?

As you are having a couple issues, you may want to consider stopping the use of the problem task and create a new task with the correct parameters. Hopefully, that would eliminate your major problems.

GH1. How to change a backup task from scheduled to "Do Not Schedule".
GH2. How to enable a backup task schedule or change a schedule time..
GH3. How to create a non-scheduled backup task on the first try.
GH4. Illustrate Manual Backup Now option or Repeat backups.

Robert,
Thanks for posting this information, however, for some reason one or more of the output files in your report are empty?

disks.txt for example:
PS Speed IFace Hs-Bs-Tg Model
Num NT L9NO Size FSsize Free FS Type Label ABCHSV Error
---- ----- ---- ----- ----- ----- ------ --------------- ----------- ------ ----------
**this area should be populated**

Acronis is crashing
Log Name: Application
Source: Application Error
Date: 6/15/2014 7:18:16 PM
Event ID: 1000
Task Category: Application Crashing Events
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: YODA
Description:
Faulting application name: TrueImage.exe, version: 16.0.0.6514, time stamp: 0x51534052
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 6.1.7601.18247, time stamp: 0x521ea8e7
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x0002e3be
Faulting process id: 0x1354
Faulting application start time: 0x01cf89092f415e61
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis\TrueImageHome\TrueImage.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ntdll.dll

Your event viewer shows that the system has restarted unexpectedly, so you might want to check all of your disks for errors... which MVP Grover was eluding to.

Log Name: System
Source: Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power
Date: 6/15/2014 7:11:17 PM
Event ID: 41
Task Category: (63)
Level: Critical
Keywords: (2)
User: SYSTEM
Computer: YODA
Description:
The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.
Event Xml:

Not sure what the below error is, will have to investigate.:

Log Name: System
Source: volsnap
Date: 6/14/2014 5:28:36 PM
Event ID: 36
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: YODA
Description:
The shadow copies of volume C: were aborted because the shadow copy storage could not grow due to a user imposed limit.

I also saw a large number of driver related errors specific to USB or a card reader. Theses are not likely related to your current issue.

On an aside, the DNS server(s) your router is using appear to be unresponsive. I'm seeing this repeatedly.
Log Name: System
Source: Microsoft-Windows-DNS-Client
Date: 6/15/2014 3:13:08 PM
Event ID: 1014
Task Category: None
Level: Warning
Keywords:
User: NETWORK SERVICE
Computer: YODA
Description:
Name resolution for the name isatap.gateway.2wire.net timed out after none of the configured DNS servers responded.

To troubleshoot you can use ping or tracert to the DNS specified and use different servers if the one's configured consistently fail to respond reliably.

Here is what I recommend.  Perform chkdsk on on disks in your machine. (MVP Grover's suggestion)

Retest, if you continue to receive errors, or if the program continues to crash, I would reinstall #6514

Use the clean up utilty to remove build #6514 from your machine.  There is a link in Grover's sig - Follow all steps completely.

Now reinstall cleanly and retest.

Thanks Grover.. So..

Total Size: Has nothing really to do with the size of what is being backed up, but is a measure of the backups themselves. And even that is wrong In the process that I use, I start a new backup chain (ie a full backup) after every 5 incrementals and then delete the previous chain. The backup task seems to be adding the size of the backups that are not there any more.

Copying the backup to an external disk: You are right. I am making a second copy using Windows, not TI. When I start a new chain, I delete the old chain from the computer harddrive but keep the previous chain on the external drive. IS THERE ANYTHING WRONG WITH THIS PROCESS?

I sometime tinker with the settings (folders that are in scope of the backup, number of incrementals before a full backup, schedule) of an existing task; but never while it is running. Can this cause confusion?

Chkdsk turned up nothing.

One I first had this problem, I solved it by spliting the backup task into two parts. This worked for a while until one of the parts started to exhibit the "no disk space even though there was tons of disk space " problem. I have created new tasks (as I indicated in my original post) and this seems to solve the problem for now, though I find the whole process a bit flaky and unreliable. It just makes me worried that when I really need to recover something, TI will not be there for me.

Robert

Shawdowsports:

Thanks for your input. I have no idea why the System Report is not complete. I also have no idea why the logs of the failed backups suddenly disappeared. That may have been related to an attempt to redirect a backup to another hard drive.

I have no idea why I dont have the right build. I installed what I downloaded and did the update. So I assume that Acronis is not delivering the right versions.

The comments about the DNS servers are way above my pay grade.

At this point I am reluctant to tinker since the immediate problem seems to be solved...for now at least.

Thanks

Robert

Hi Robert,
You have the correct build. The final build released for version 2012 was #6514. When a version is released 2010, 2011, 2012,2013... newer builds with fixes that address problems or that add features are released between major versions. Some of the errors in your event log could indicate a problem with your installation. If not addressed over time, these can manifest themselves into program crashes and failures.

At this point now, I think reinstalling your product might be a good idea. You have checked your disks and I assume each reported the disk and file system as healthy.

So we are left with what appears to be a software issue. Starting over with a new back up task created from scratch could work. Starting over with a fresh install of Acronis might be better. The software is designed to provide protection against data loss. You should not have to split tasks to keep things working. It's not suppose to feel flakey or unreliable.

MVP shadowsports wrote:

At this point now, I think reinstalling your product might be a good idea. You have checked your disks and I assume each reported the disk and file system as healthy.

I would concur except additionally run the cleanup tool (my signature link 4 below).

Robert wrote:

I delete the old chain from the computer harddrive IS THERE ANYTHING WRONG WITH THIS PROCESS?

I sometime tinker with the settings (folders that are in scope of the backup, number of incrementals before a full backup, schedule) of an existing task; but never while it is running. Can this cause confusion?

Yes! The manual deletion (I assume using Windows rather than using the program delete) and the tinkering with settings is causing much of your grief. Your history file is out of sync (wrong sizes, wrong nunber of backups) and the best way to get start with a new history file and and new backup tasks. So starting over clean, now would be a good place to start.

For the future, set the tasks and do not make changes to their settings. If changes needed, stop the old task and start a new task with the new changes and poiint the new task to a new folder. Schedule changes can be done from outside the edit settings option as per link illustration in prior post #4.

Use a backup scheme which uses automatic cleanup so manual cleanup is not needed. This does not interfere with your extra copying process but make sure TI is closed during the extra copy function.
GH12. Create Custom Incremental Backup Scheme. 6 Inc, Keep 4 chains. The 6-4 is user choice. If you want only to keep the 1 full plus 5 incs, you can change 6/4 exampe to 5 inc and keep 1 chain.

If you choose, the manual deletion of original backups is acceptable but only if you do the deletion from inside the program so the program can track which backup files remain in the its main storage folder.
GH5. How to delete backup files using the program Acronis Backup 'Explorer'
----------------------------
To check the Recovery partiton for disk errors, use Windows Disk Mangement and assign any unused drive letter to the partition. Check it for errors and then remove the temp drive letter returning it back to its original unlettered status.

Thanks to you both.

Ok I see the point about the manual deletion and will need to be more careful. I am somewhat concerned that I get flaky response if I edit settings on an existing (but no running) task. I would think that if it is so sensitive to this stuff, I shouldn't be allowed to edit the settings. Anyways I be more careful about that.

I am extremely reluctant to reinstall because I am afraid that something will break. At any rate I dont understand the point of reinstalling if I have the right build.

BTW, I follow GH5 above using an existing backup. There was only one (ie the initial)full backup in the explorer. When I right click on the backup the menu DID not have a delete option. Is that normal?

Thanks

Robert

I am extremely reluctant to reinstall because I am afraid that something will break. At any rate I dont understand the point of reinstalling if I have the right build.

It is also possible to rerun the TI installation file for your currnet version of TrueImage and a "Repair" opton will be offered. This will freshen the current installation with the files and sometimes fixes less serious issues. The point of reinstalltion is to fix all the issues which you have reported having or doing.

When attempting to delete, if you RIGHT click on the listed file rectangle and actually select the file, you shoule get a Delete option. There is another delete opition from within the task edit settings but that option will delete both the tib files plus also delete the backup task. I do not like using this specific delete function as it offers less controls and less options than the my recommended GH5 delete option.