continuous user deferral

[jl335]

Hi, I'm using Retrospect 7.5 for several computers, most of which run Windows XP and are backed up fine. However, one Windows 2000 machine continuously defers backup, according the Retrospect events log. (Log says "User deferred" every few minutes or seconds.) I've talked to the user, and he says he only asked to defer backup once, and not to a date/time in the future. I've tried uninstalling/reinstalling the Retrospect client on his computer, but the deferrals continue. Any thoughts? Hope this is the right forum, and of course please feel free to refer me if this topic has been covered before.

 

Thanks,

Jocelyn

[Mayoff]

some 3rd party software could be causing a conflict. The client is trying to display a countdown dialog box. Something is clicking defer to that dialog box, before the user even gets to see it (I suspect).

 

Put that user in it's own proactive script and set the client countdown option to Zero in the script options. This will avoid the problem.

[jl335]

Thanks! Your strategy worked.

[psmart]

I have the same problem with Retrospect 6.5.350 and a Windows-98 client that shows "user deferred" every two minutes. But the more serious consequence is that proactive backup goes back to the top of the source list, and never checks the sources after the troublesome client. As a result, we've gone 4 days with no backups on our most critical drives!

 

So there are two problems: (1) The client defers automatically, and (2) Proactive backup gets reset to the top of the source list. Are there fixes for these problems I'm not aware of?

 

Just like Jocelyn, the problem started after I did a singe deferral on this PC, which is running cleint 6.5.138. I think this is the first deferral I've done since updating from the 6.5.132 client two weeks ago.

[psmart]

Further test results: The behavior is the same with client 6.5.132 and 6.5.138. Client uninstall and reinstall has no effect. Are there some hidden configuration settings that could be reset?

 

I can do an immediate backup with no problems. Proactive & client works fine on other PC's. If I watch the problem client window as proactive scans the client, I see the following status messages in rapid sucession:

 

Connected

In use by "BackupPC" for: Preparing...

Ready

 

At this exact moment, proactive resumes scanning at the top of the source list, ignoring any sources below it. If I turn the client off, scanning continues to the following sources and they are properly backed up.

[psmart]

As a further test, I set the countdown timer to zero. With the problem client turned on, proactive does not do any backups, and this message appears in the operations log:

 

extgTask: Source polling timed out after 30 mins.

 

When I closed Retrospect, it hung while "Quitting..." and I had to terminate the task.

[jishaq]

This fixed it for me:

http://kb.dantz.com/article.asp?article=7956&p=2

 

-Jeff

[psmart]

That's not my problem. Proactive backup DOES run, and all workstations get backed up except for the one that was previously deferred. (In any case, I'm running 6.5 without the X button.)

[pmhesse]

I had the same situation as jocelyn at the top of this thread. I'm running 7.0, and deferred once right before I shutdown. From then on, proactive backups were not working.

 

I turned off the warning notification and then it executed -- not before I uninstalled and reinstalled the client a few times. This would be a good knowledgebase article. Additionally, I'm curious as to what could possibly be causing this. I'm thinking about turning the warning notification on one more time to see if it will work.

[psmart]

Problem solved: The Retrospect client left a file called RETRO_DEFER in the Windows temp folder. It has zero length, and was created in April when I did the *only* defer on this workstation. After I deleted the file the continous deferral was fixed, and the workstation was backed up as expected! Apparently the file is a flag that keeps the workstation in a deferred state, and the client software failed to delete it regardless of the on-screen settings.

 

This is clearly a BUG that really should be documented and fixed. Again, the symptom is a stream of "user deferred" messages in the events tab of the activity monitor. This has been happening for four months, forcing me to do a manual backup on this (my) workstation, rather than relying on proactive backup, which handles the other PC's.

[jcheffy]

I can confirm that the RETRO_DEFER in windows temp file is causing this behaviour. I've had same problem for several days and as per this information was able to correct.

Thanks for the help! I was going in circles trying to resolve.