Broken "Backup scheme" - how do I recover or cope
Today I managed to get ATI 2017 confused and would like help getting back on track. There follows a long, rambling description of what I did. Sorry I'm not a better story teller.
I take a daily backup of some files on a NAS drive - Incremental, full + 6 increments. Today was the day for the full backup, but I was having problems with my PC so decided to kill the backup and restart it once I had fixed the PC. It had started to create "Networked Files_full_b39_s1_v1.tib".
Once I had the PC (sort of) stable I tried restarting the backup but ATI told me the restart was scheduled for about 10 minutes away. I could not tell from the message whether the backup was going to start over or resume from where it had left off. I definitely did not want it to start where it left off so I stopped the backup again. And tried starting it again with the same result.
In a feeble attempt to keep a "resume" from happening again I changed the schedule (reducing the number of kept generations) and changed the source from the full \Public\ directory to selected bunch of subdirectories. I may have rebooted, too. I don't remember.
I restarted the backup and let it run. I worked, but instead of taking a full backup it took an incremental one: Networked Files_inc_b38_s8_v1.tib. For no obvious reason I tried again and it created another incremental backup: Networked Files_inc_b38_s9_v1.tib.
Finally, my questions:
- How do I get ATI to take a full backup now?
- Have I caused any problems by changing the list of source files and directories within the backup scheme? (I can browse the backup chain with no apparent problem.)
I don't think we can attach things yest, but I can provide the logs if it will help.
The simple solution for the need to create a full backup would be to create a new back-up task and configure it so that it only does full backup and is run manually.
Well, that would create one full backup every time I run it, but that's not what I want. I want to get back to my Full+6 incr scheme rather that the current one that claims to to be Full+6 but is currently at least Full+9.
Do I delete this kludged task and create a new one with the same task name, source and target as the old one? If so, will it continue with "Networked Files_full_b39_s1_v1.tib" or will it start over with "Networked Files_full_b1_s1_v1.tib"?
As I understand it, you need to have different names for each backup task, otherwise things can go very wrong. This is particularly the case if the backups are being made to the same directory. It would start with a full backup b1 and then each incremental backup will start from 1.
If you really want to continue with the current name and location, try decreasing the number of incremental backups. This change may not take until after the next full backup. (As a matter of caution I would create a one-off backup before trying this.)
Patrick...let me see if I can help.
Editing an existing task to force it to start over with a full backup never works.
So, my recommendation is to edit the original task and change the schedule to "Do Not Schedule". (Picture below) This should stop the old task.
Then create a new task and configure it like you want it...and as Ian stated, give it a different name. I would also recommend using a different folder for the new backup.
Once the new task has completed the first full backup, then you can remove the old task. If backup disk space is not a problem, you may want to wait until the new task has completed its first cycle...for example 1 full followed by 5 incremental (if that is your backup scheme)....then remove the old task.
WRT your first question "How do I get ATI to take a full backup now?" and Ian's response "The simple solution for the need to create a full backup would be to create a new back-up task and configure it so that it only does full backup and is run manually." ..... Whenever I have a computer malfunction, similar to the one you experienced, and I get the computer fixed, then the first thing I want to do is get a full back up done. And Ian's recommendation is the fastest way to get that done. Once that back up is finished (and I am protected) then I would create a new task, configure it the way I want it. Then, once it has completed the first full backup, then remove the original task and even the manual backup task. Does this help clarify or add to the confusion?
I hope this helps.
Regards,
FtrPilot
Thanks for your responses. ATI may have fixed itself today so I might not need to take any further action. Just a few minutes ago it started taking the full backup I was hoping for. And note that I wasn't particularly interested in getting the full backup. I just wanted it to stop taking extra incremental backups. (It had just taken increments 7 and 8 out of the requested 6.)
Editing an existing task to force it to start over with a full backup never works.
Just to be clear, I didn't edit the task specifically to for taking a full backup. I edited it to reduce the number of saved generations (or whatever the appropriate Acronis term is.) But I hoped it might get ATI back on track.
WRT your first question "How do I get ATI to take a full backup now?" and Ian's response "The simple solution for the need to create a full backup would be to create a new back-up task and configure it so that it only does full backup and is run manually."
Good responses, but I had asked the wrong question. I really meant "How do I get ATI to realize it has taken too many incremental backups?". It looks like the answer is "ATI will eventually figure it out". :-)
BTW, I do have non-scheduled backup tasks for taking full backups of my partitions (in addition to a scheduled incremental backups of them). But the backup scheme I have for these NAS files servers as both backup and short term archival history. I don't want to mess up that scheme too much.
Patrick, one of the side effects of making changes to the backup scheme settings, i.e. changing the number of incrementals before a new full backup, is that it resets the scheme count, so if you originally had say 6 incrementals set and after 4 you change this to 5, then you may end up with 9 before the next backup! This has been brought up many times in the forums and seems to be considered as working as designed!
Thanks Steve. I don't remember changing the number of increments but I probably did. Broken as designed (BaD). :-) And that's not very broken.