gasser

I'm still on Mojave (need to stay there for a while due to app compatibility) which is why I haven't updated Retrospect for a while. There hasn't been any change to my O.S. in quite some time--it's a very stable unchanging environment.

I launched retrospect today (hadn't used it in several months) to see how my backups were doing, it wanted me to register the app! That never happened before: I have been using it for years just fine. So I entered my license key, and then it started up, but showed no activities or backups or media sets. When I clicked on Sources in the sidebar, it showed all my attached drives but not my internal drive (which happens to be an SSD). It's supposed to show my internal drive, right?When I clicked the Add button to add a source, the popup window was empty. At the top it said "Sources from interface: Default" and "Use multicast" and it seems to spin forever. I clicked the Backup button in the home screen and in the 1-Click Backup window, it shows my internal drive. But when I select that and choose "Use 1-Click Backup" I get a red error "RefBackujpsetsContainer::CreateBackupset: volRef invalid". At the top of my internal drive I have a Retrospect Catalogs folder that contains a .rbc file with the name of the media set that I was previously backing up to but its modification date is in October. I checked my backup disk and it contains .rdb files from October. So, there are backups there, albeit several months old. How do I get my backups back?

I haven't tried David's method in post #2 of this thread yet, but I'm wondering if that will help. I first tried deleting all the .session files and am trying a full rebuild, but I keep getting disk full errors when it tries to create new .session files. Of course it can't create those files, because my disk is full. I don't see why removing and re-adding the media set will change this. I thought Retrospect was supposed to be able to groom a media set so I can recover space when the disk is full, but it won't groom unless the catalog is in sync, and it won't create a new catalog because it doesn't have space for .session files. Is this a Catch-22?

That's funny, because I'm using Retrospect 14.

Maser, are you saying those .session files are disposable? I see a whole bunch of them, but I'm skeptical that would avoid the "disk full" errors. Yes, the disk is full--that's why I'm grooming. FWIW, my last backup attempt seemed to work, but failed grooming: Normal backup using Offsite Backup at 4/3/17, 7:07:35 PM 4/3/17 7:07:36 PM: Finished scanning backup set data files To Backup Set Offsite 3 TB... - 4/3/17 7:07:35 PM: Copying DAS 3TB 4/3/17 7:18:22 PM: Found: 3771325 files, 490230 folders, 2.6 TB 4/3/17 7:19:27 PM: Finished matching 4/3/17 7:20:28 PM: Copying: 151683 files (345.8 GB) and 34 hard links - 4/3/17 7:20:53 PM: Verifying DAS 3TB Grooming Backup Set Offsite 3 TB, optimizing for storage... [*] ArcDisk::arcExportSessionFileTo: failed to create "/Volumes/Offsite 3 TB/Retrospect/Offsite 3 TB/1-Offsite 3 TB/AA129666052405140000u.session" (11/24/11 9:47:20 AM) (voldex: 0): error -1,115 (disk full) [*] ArcDisk::arcExportSessionFileTo: failed to create "/Volumes/Offsite 3 TB/Retrospect/Offsite 3 TB/1-Offsite 3 TB/AA129964524749290000u.session" (11/3/12 9:41:14 PM) (voldex: 0): error -1,115 (disk full) ... and so on for 100 or so lines.

Thanks, David. I may have had fast catalog rebuild turned on, I don't know. I will try the remove/add option if all else fails. One thing curious about this media set: Retrospect shows it as "Used 4.9 TB" and "Capacity 2.7 TB". Clearly that makes no sense. It consists of two 3-TB drives. It seems that it's only counting one of the drives in its Capacity calculation.

I groomed my 2-disk 5-TB USB-attached media set and it reported "catalog out of sync"'. I rebuilt the catalog (which took 2 days) and tried a backup. It failed again with the same error. I did this 2 more times over the span of more than a week, and still the same problem. I don't know if this matters, but the rebuild always ends with hundreds of lines like this: TString::setBufferSize:65,545 capped at 65,535 TString::setBufferSize:65,548 capped at 65,535 TString::setBufferSize:65,545 capped at 65,535 TString::setBufferSize:65,546 capped at 65,535 TString::setBufferSize:65,546 capped at 65,535 TString::setBufferSize:65,546 capped at 65,535 TString::setBufferSize:65,546 capped at 65,535 TString::setBufferSize:65,547 capped at 65,535 TString::setBufferSize:94,144 capped at 65,535   so I guess the rebuild never finished? Since that happened, I upgraded to Retrospect 14 and tried a rebuild again. This time I got these errors: [*] ArcDisk::arcExportSessionFileTo: failed to create "/Volumes/Offsite 3 TB/Retrospect/Offsite 3 TB/1-Offsite 3 TB/AA129964524749290000u.session" (11/3/12 9:41:14 PM) (voldex: 0): error -1,115 (disk full) [*] ArcDisk::arcExportSessionFileTo: failed to create "/Volumes/Offsite 3 TB/Retrospect/Offsite 3 TB/1-Offsite 3 TB/AA129989553118820000u.session" (12/2/12 7:55:11 PM) (voldex: 0): error -1,115 (disk full) [*] ArcDisk::arcExportSessionFileTo: failed to create "/Volumes/Offsite 3 TB/Retrospect/Offsite 3 TB/1-Offsite 3 TB/AA130015261015140000u.session" (1/1/13 2:01:41 PM) (voldex: 0): error -1,115 (disk full) [*] ArcDisk::arcExportSessionFileTo: failed to create "/Volumes/Offsite 3 TB/Retrospect/Offsite 3 TB/1-Offsite 3 TB/AA130068041369500000u.session" (3/3/13 4:08:56 PM) (voldex: 0): error -1,115 (disk full) [*] ArcDisk::arcExportSessionFileTo: failed to create "/Volumes/Offsite 3 TB/Retrospect/Offsite 3 TB/1-Offsite 3 TB/AA130072390719190000u.session" (3/8/13 4:57:51 PM) (voldex: 0): error -1,115 (disk full) 3/20/17 7:23:34 AM: Execution stopped by operator Completed: 3,719,023 files, 2.4 TB Performance: 2,092.4 MB/minute Duration: 20:33:37 (00:50:40 idle/loading/preparing) [*] UAllowSystemSleepAgain: IOPMAssertionRelease failed, err = -536,870,200 Why am I getting a disk full on the backup volume? Why is it trying to write to the backup volume to rebuild the catalog? My catalog is not being stored there.

I groomed my 2-disk 5-TB USB-attached media set and it reported "catalog out of sync"'.  I rebuilt the catalog (which took 2 days) and tried a backup.  It failed again with the same error.  I did this 2 more times over the span of more than a week, and still the same problem.   I don't know if this matters, but the rebuild always ends with hundreds of lines like this:   TString::setBufferSize:65,545 capped at 65,535 TString::setBufferSize:65,548 capped at 65,535 TString::setBufferSize:65,545 capped at 65,535 TString::setBufferSize:65,546 capped at 65,535 TString::setBufferSize:65,546 capped at 65,535 TString::setBufferSize:65,546 capped at 65,535 TString::setBufferSize:65,546 capped at 65,535 TString::setBufferSize:65,547 capped at 65,535 TString::setBufferSize:94,144 capped at 65,535   so I guess the rebuild never finished? Since that happened, I upgraded to Retrospect 14 and tried a rebuild again. This time I got these errors: [*] ArcDisk::arcExportSessionFileTo: failed to create "/Volumes/Offsite 3 TB/Retrospect/Offsite 3 TB/1-Offsite 3 TB/AA129964524749290000u.session" (11/3/12 9:41:14 PM) (voldex: 0): error -1,115 (disk full) [*] ArcDisk::arcExportSessionFileTo: failed to create "/Volumes/Offsite 3 TB/Retrospect/Offsite 3 TB/1-Offsite 3 TB/AA129989553118820000u.session" (12/2/12 7:55:11 PM) (voldex: 0): error -1,115 (disk full) [*] ArcDisk::arcExportSessionFileTo: failed to create "/Volumes/Offsite 3 TB/Retrospect/Offsite 3 TB/1-Offsite 3 TB/AA130015261015140000u.session" (1/1/13 2:01:41 PM) (voldex: 0): error -1,115 (disk full) [*] ArcDisk::arcExportSessionFileTo: failed to create "/Volumes/Offsite 3 TB/Retrospect/Offsite 3 TB/1-Offsite 3 TB/AA130068041369500000u.session" (3/3/13 4:08:56 PM) (voldex: 0): error -1,115 (disk full) [*] ArcDisk::arcExportSessionFileTo: failed to create "/Volumes/Offsite 3 TB/Retrospect/Offsite 3 TB/1-Offsite 3 TB/AA130072390719190000u.session" (3/8/13 4:57:51 PM) (voldex: 0): error -1,115 (disk full) 3/20/17 7:23:34 AM: Execution stopped by operator Completed: 3,719,023 files, 2.4 TB Performance: 2,092.4 MB/minute Duration: 20:33:37 (00:50:40 idle/loading/preparing) [*] UAllowSystemSleepAgain: IOPMAssertionRelease failed, err = -536,870,200 Why am I getting a disk full on the backup volume? Why is it trying to write to the backup volume to rebuild the catalog? My catalog is not being stored there.

The other choice I have is to buy a new disk and use that as the 2nd member of this media set. How would grooming work with 2 members? Does it need to have both member online for every backup, so it can do grooming across both members?

That's a thought, but it has just one subfolder, Daily 4TB-1, which in turn contains one subfolder, 1-Daily 4TB-1, which in turn contains; 9847 .rdb files, 4TB's worth.

I have it set to use 3725 GB or 100%. In the finder, it says I'm using 3.7 GB and it's all in the Retrospect folder on the disk. The disk has nothing else. Disk Utility's verify says the disk is OK. So, that gets me back to wondering whether something very large is backed up on it that I'm not aware of.

I'm using Retrospect defined policy: last backup of each day for last week, last backup each week for last month, and last backup each month for 12 months. I'm doing nightly backups. Since my backup drive is 4 TB and the volume I'm backing up only has 2.13 TB of data on it, it seems unlikely that I've used up the entire backup volume with this policy. I have no huge files that I'm constantly changing. I really would like to avoid going to a 2nd member. If it's really true that the volume is filled up, it must be because it has backed up some huge files I'm not aware of, perhaps ones that I no longer have. Is there any way for me to find the largest files on the backup and delete them?

It said "needs media" and is asking me to choose a new member of my media set named "2-Daily 4TB-1". Why would it do that, when I told it to groom? Shouldn't it remove old files, or do whatever it needs, to fit my one backup drive? The log looks like this. Normal backup using Daily Backup at 4/7/16, 10:33:45 PM Adding to 3.7 TB of backup set data, starting at file index 21,297 To Backup Set Daily 4TB-1... - 4/7/16 10:33:45 PM: Copying DAS 3TB Using Instant Scan 4/7/16 10:34:16 PM: Found: 3623927 files, 498796 folders, 2.2 TB 4/7/16 11:24:42 PM: Finished matching 4/7/16 11:34:31 PM: Copying: 983 files (5.5 GB) and 1 hard links 4/7/16 11:37:44 PM: Building Snapshot... 4/7/16 11:37:44 PM: Checking 498,796 folders for ACLs or extended attributes 4/7/16 11:38:01 PM: Finished copying 27,251 folders with ACLs or extended attributes 4/7/16 11:41:34 PM: Copying Snapshot: 2 files (1.1 GB) 4/7/16 11:42:15 PM: Grooming Backup Set Daily 4TB-1... 4/8/16 8:59:06 PM: Groomed 10.0 MB from Backup Set Daily 4TB-1. 4/8/16 8:59:06 PM: Groomed 9.9 MB from Backup Set Daily 4TB-1. E-mail notification failed: error -597 (mail server not found)

I tried to do a restore, but no matter how I try it, it says "Backup unavailable". Yet, it's backing up right now (again, in grooming state since last night). Is it not possible to do a restore while it's grooming? I selected multiple backups from several weeks ago, all with the same problem. I also just tried to browse the backup set with the same results. I'm worried now I won't be able to access anything on the backup disk, even though it's happily completing nightly backups.

When I checked it today, the rebuild completed with errors and then two more daily backups were done, both completed successfully. Does this mean my catalog rebuild worked? The log from the rebuild looks like this. Should I worry about this? Executing Rebuild at 4/3/16, 7:51:01 PM To Backup Set Daily 4TB-1... Scanned /Volumes/Daily 4TB-1/Retrospect/Daily 4TB-1/1-Daily 4TB-1 up to backup set data file index 21,179 4/3/16 7:52:52 PM: Finished scanning backup set data files !Generated MD5 digest for file "/Volumes/DAS 1TB/Movies/Family, Kids, Parties, Events/Budlong School Reunion.dv" does not match stored MD5 digest. E-mail notification failed: error -597 (mail server not found) The Disk Media Set data files "AA000009,824.rdb" to "AA000009,825.rdb" reported missing by user !Generated MD5 digest for file "/Volumes/DAS 2TB/private/var/run/vmware/morrie_501/1406852652787466_23506/configFile" does not match stored MD5 digest. !Generated MD5 digest for file "/Volumes/DAS 2TB/private/var/run/vmware/e0f4ff37d19d4c2bf2585715c1e64ed5" does not match stored MD5 digest. !Generated MD5 digest for file "/Volumes/DAS 2TB/private/var/run/vmware/morrie_501/1407278322683259_58485/configFile" does not match stored MD5 digest. !Media Set format inconsistency (5 at 50874360) 4/4/16 1:26:10 PM: 6 execution errors Completed: 5,785,620 files, 3.6 TB Performance: 4,118.9 MB/minute Duration: 17:33:50 (02:13:35 idle/loading/preparing) 4/4/16 1:26:10 PM: Script "Rebuild" completed with 6 errors E-mail notification failed: error -597 (mail server not found)