Scheduled backups don't run with phantom pending tasks
Using ABR 11, two backup plans/tasks were working fine for ~2 weeks. Then, spontaneously and randomly, the tasks stopped trying to backup clients. The last backup run on a particular client was fine, no error message in log, it just stopped trying on that client and never ran again.
In the hopes of getting useful error information, I create individual backup plans pointed to dedicated vaults. I schedule the jobs, They don't run. In the dashboard, I get a warning "Awaiting task or activity: 'Simple Backup (Full)' Fix the issue ...Accept" Hmmm...it sure would be nice to now WHICH MACHINE has the issue, but I click on fix the issue.
A popup says "one or more activities need your interaction" followed by "Number of activities that need interaction: 0" and a blank list of activities.
I search on that and find KB24511. I run the script as instructed to delete orphaned tasks. I go to Backup plans and click Run Simple Backup (full).
I go to dashboard to see if it runs...now I have an error "Task Failed: Simple backup (full) again NO MACHINE NAME(?!?!?!?) so I click on fix the issue. It takes me to the backup plans and tasks where I see the server in error. No information under details. I click on log and I get lots of red, but only the result: failed, which I already knew. Oh, click on failed, and finally, we get this message:
----------------------
Error Code: 3
Module: 309
LineInfo: 4a8728dc8a1c94f8
mms.exe
message: "Command 'Running task: 'Simple backup (full)' of backup plan 'plan1' has failed.
Error code: 3002
Module: 329
LineInfo: 8234610504d1e287
Fields:
Message: Failed to run task: '0' of backup plan 'E3EC3608-AAE8-0096-39F8-28EC2FF5E2E66'
Error Code: 111
Module: 9
LineInfo: d6e6b1a4069ca4f9
Message: Failed to run the task: it is already waiting.
----------------------
Now I have 3 machines which are stalled because of phantom tasks I can't delete, and two machines which are errored out.
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
V/r
Brian
Those orphaned tasks are normally only problems with the AMS-Database. They shouldn't interfere with the schedules on the agents. The Schedulers on the agents are all independent of the server (the AMS only distributes the plans).
If I have a hung client, these actions usually fix it:
TASKKILL /F /IM mms.exe
restart Acronis Managed Machine Service
restart Acronis Scheduler
mind that this will also abort any action Acronis is currently doing on the client.
If this fails, I try rebooting the agent machine.
You should also try connecting directly to the agent and see if your task is stuck. If you see the tasks stuck in "current activities" while being connected directly (not via AMS) then the agent has a problem.
Acronis is kind of like a jigsaw puzzle where every day you find half of the pieces were re-arranged while you weren't looking.
So, here are some updates and new adventures, but relate to phantom tasks.
The REAL cure to "activities need interaction" is to set all jobs under Backup Options to Error Handling: silent mode.
Another random reason systems might not backup without providing any useful error information is a "feature" when locking out the service account (which is highly likely given the operator must re-enter it to look at every store and 4-5 times just to setup a client to backup), AMS looses all the licensing information. The clients, which were working for weeks, suddenly can't backup because they are "unlicensed". So, add the licenses back-in on AMS, then you just remote to every single client (hundreds in fact) and restart Acronis services so they reregister the licenses. All is right with the world...until you lock-out the account again and get to duplicate this fun exercise.
On a different network, I finally gave up fixing all the errors and decided to start over with a separate service account (since that also brought down the customer application - a poor decision made before my arrival). Interestingly, even after full uninstall, deleting Acronis directories, and deleting Acronis directories, and re-installing without issue, there are STILL pending "activities requiring interaction" from the previous install. Now I will try the script to clear them and see if it works on truly orphaned objects...I am not hopeful.
I probably should have gone into SQL and deleted the databases.
Hello Brian Carter,
Thank you for posting this issue in our forum.
I want to thank Heiko Helmle for supporting you.
I completely understand your frustation and appoligize for this. As I understood, you already used the script from this article and killed the backup process using the syntax provided from Heiko Helmle?
If you need additional assistance, you can contact support. You will find all available support options in our Customer handbook.
If there is anything else we can do for you, please let me know.
Thank you.