Console Backups panel bar graph bug for multi-drive backup

[DavidHertzberg]

Here's a Console Backups panel bug that I've noticed again this afternoon, originally associated with the script "Sat. Backup NoMacHDNew" that has since been replaced by the script "Sat. Backup". Retrospect 12.5 all the way.

 

10 September: The bar graph for last Saturday—which is subdivided by drive in the reverse sequence of their backup (I guess that's reasonable, and the mouse-over display is cool)—shows no subdivision for the first-backed-up drive in "Sat. Backup NoMacHDNew", which is "Macintosh HD" on the client "David's MacBook Pro". The GB for that drive is, however, included in the Total GBs.

 

12 September: As scheduled every Saturday, today reran "Sat. Backup NoMacHDNew" (Recycle MediaSet) followed by "Sat. Backup OnlyMacHDNew" (No Media Action) to a different MediaSet. As soon as "Sat. Backup NoMacHDNew" had completed, the bug—no subdivision for the first-backed-up drive—appeared on the Console Backups panel—which only shows a bar graph entry for the latest day after at least one script has run on that day. However the subdivision for the first-backed-up drive in "Sat. Backup NoMacHDNew", which is "Macintosh HD" on the client "David's MacBook Pro", re-appeared in the bar graph after "Sat. Backup OnlyMacHDNew" had completed.

 

15 November: As scheduled every Saturday, yesterday reran "Sat. Backup" (Recycle MediaSet) to a different MediaSet. As soon as "Sat. Backup" had completed, the bug—no subdivision for the first-backed-up drive—appeared on the Console Backups panel. Today the subdivision for the first-backed-up drive in "Sat. Backup", which is "Macintosh HD" on the client "David's MacBook Pro", did not re-appear in the bar graph after "Sun.-Fri. Backup" (No Media Action) had completed.

[DavidHertzberg]

22 November: As scheduled every Saturday, yesterday reran "Sat. Backup" (Recycle MediaSet) to a different MediaSet. As soon as "Sat. Backup" had completed, the bug—no subdivision for the first-backed-up drive—appeared on the Console Backups panel. Today the subdivision for the first-backed-up drive in "Sat. Backup", which is "Macintosh HD" on the client "David's MacBook Pro", did not re-appear in the Saturday bar graph after "Sun.-Fri. Backup" (No Media Action) had completed. In its place (the rightmost place—remember that subdivisions appear in the graph in the reverse sequence of their backup), the subdivision for the last-backed-up drive in "Sat. Backup", which is "Macintosh HD New" on the server "Ronny's Mac Pro", was duplicated in the bar graph for "Sat. Backup" after "Sun.-Fri. Backup" (No Media Action) had completed.

 

The Total GBs for Saturday, even rounding-down the individual drive backed-up amounts, is now about 7GB too low; it appears that the backed-up amount for the second-backed-up drive—"Macintosh HD OS X" on the client "Mimi's Old G4"—is no longer included in the Total GBs—even though it is a subdivision on the bar graph. This is not a bar graph bug, but a bug elsewhere in the Console Backups panel (I can't change the topic title, or I would have).

[DavidHertzberg]

5 December: As scheduled every Saturday, today reran "Sat. Backup" (Recycle MediaSet) to a different MediaSet. The bar graph subdivisions for the six drives were correct. Nothing was different except the (rotated) Media Set onto which the backup took place.

 

I pity the poor Retrospect Inc. programmer who has to debug this mess.

[twickland]

For those times when the graphic display is incorrect, have you tried quitting and relaunching the console to see if the display changes? I'm wondering whether the errors you see are a failure of the console to update properly with the latest data from the engine, which is a problem we frequently observe.

[DavidHertzberg]

 

For those times when the graphic display is incorrect, have you tried quitting and relaunching the console to see if the display changes? I'm wondering whether the errors you see are a failure of the console to update properly with the latest data from the engine, which is a problem we frequently observe.

I have frequently tried quitting and relaunching the entire Retrospect 12.5 application. In fact I normally use my Mac Pro only as a Retrospect server once a day, so I shut down the entire Mac Pro as soon as the daily backup is finished and reboot it the next day. I have not observed the display change in a good way from a new execution of Retrospect within the same week. However in my earlier post in the thread covering 22 November, I did observe the display to change in a further worse way.

 

Within the same execution of Retrospect, I do not know how to quit and relaunch the console (I suppose I could look it up). I'm only a small-scale Retrospect user; I run the entire backup server complex on a single Mac Pro.

 

I'll be glad to help in any way I can in debugging this. And may HaShem have mercy on our souls.

[twickland]

Within the same execution of Retrospect, I do not know how to quit and relaunch the console (I suppose I could look it up). 

The Retrospect app is the console. The console is only a user interface to the Retrospect Engine process; the Engine is what actually performs the backups, and is started and stopped via a preference pane in System Preferences. You can quit and relaunch the console app at any time without affecting backups or other activities.

 

The fact that you are rebooting daily is likely avoiding the issues we see where the console miscommunicates with the engine, which typically appear in our case only after the console has been up and running for several days.