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Can't Verify, Browse, Or Restore From Backup


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Before installing Mac OSX Lion on my laptop I did a backup across the network using Mac client from my Mac Pro running Retrospect 8.2.0 (399) to a disk file on the Mac Pro. The backup showed that it was successful and to make sure I ran 'verify' on the media set. No problems were found.

 

After installing Lion on the laptop I wanted to browse the backup from the Retrospect server and select a few files to restore. Nothing seems to work, I am unable to browse, verify, or restore from the backup. The backup is approximately 52,000 files, 42 GBs. When I run verify it just runs with the only message being that the verify was started. Nothing more, even if I let it run for several hours. If I try to stop the verify, I get the dialog back asking if I want to stop, when I click "stop" the verification continues. I don't see any messages logged to the Console app either.

 

Should I try to do a "rebuild" of the backup? I probably have nothing to lose at this point. Should I make a copy of the media set first?

 

Any other suggestions? There are only a few dozen files I need to get from the backup.

 

I've seen some other postings about problems with network backups, is this the same type of problem?

 

David.

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Guest Steve Maser

did you try stopping the Engine on the Mac Pro and restarting it to see if that would clear things up?

 

If you run the console on the Mac Pro (after restarting the engine), can you browse that backup?

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did you try stopping the Engine on the Mac Pro and restarting it to see if that would clear things up?

 

If you run the console on the Mac Pro (after restarting the engine), can you browse that backup?

 

I'm sure the engine has been restarted several times since I created the backup when Lion came out.

 

The verify I started when I posted the original message continue running for over 20 hours, then the engine crashed.

 

I'm going to make a copy of the file, restart the engine and try doing a rebuild.

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You've described your experience with Verify, but what happens when you try and Restore?

What do you see in the Backups tab of the selected Media Set in the Media Sets window?

 

Restore just did nothing. The backups tab showed what looks like a good backup. Correct date/time stamp, number of files, system backed up, etc.

 

After making a copy of the backup, I ran the Rebuild. The catalog was rebuilt and I'm able to browse and restore from the backup.

 

Restrospect needs to be improved in its error handling. If a catalog is bad, then an error message showed be displayed and the process stopped. When I ran "Verify" I waited 77 hours (over the weekend) before I finally stopped the engine. The same thing when I tried to browse, I would wait several hours and no error messages and nothing retrieved from the backup.

 

Let's hope the 9.x fixes some of these problems.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Restore just did nothing. The backups tab showed what looks like a good backup. Correct date/time stamp, number of files, system backed up, etc.

 

After making a copy of the backup, I ran the Rebuild. The catalog was rebuilt and I'm able to browse and restore from the backup.

 

Restrospect needs to be improved in its error handling. If a catalog is bad, then an error message showed be displayed and the process stopped. When I ran "Verify" I waited 77 hours (over the weekend) before I finally stopped the engine. The same thing when I tried to browse, I would wait several hours and no error messages and nothing retrieved from the backup.

 

Let's hope the 9.x fixes some of these problems.

 

 

So on November 2nd I posted that I was able to browse and restore from the backup after I did a "Rebuild". Today I went to restore some more files from the backup and it is essentially an empty backup. Same backup I used on the 1st, I have not backed up from the laptop again, there are no scripts running that would have touched the backup disk file, my disk in the Mac Pro has no errors, the original backup file is there with the original date of July 21, 2011, as a 4K file. I have log files showing that I successfully restored from the backup on 11/1/11 @ 9:47 pm. Unbelievable.... I think I made a backup of the backup before I did the rebuild, hopefully I didn't delete that after the rebuild worked.

 

For Small Business/Home Users would Apple's Time Machine backup be better than Retrospect 8.x/9.x?

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Guest Steve Maser

How are you defining that you believe it's an "empty backup"?

 

I have seen instances with 8.2 (not with 9.0 -- yet) where launching the console showed me -- incorrectly -- that one of my 8 media sets had no members. This was a console glitch as backups would work for that media set without issue, but the console thinks there's a problem with the media set (when there really isn't...)

 

A quit/restart of the console -- always cleared this up. This sounds like you might be seeing the same problem. Might that be the issue?

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Guest Steve Maser

He's seeing the "backup disk file" (File Media Set file?) in the Finder as 4k. Sounds empty to me.

 

 

Dave

 

 

Ah, I missed that.

 

Sounds like something "recycled" the media set.

 

However any manual (or scripted) recycle should show in the log if it was recycled by Retrospect (at least it's logged in Retrospect 9...):

 

! 11/14/11: Manual Recycle of Backup Set AMY

 

or

 

11/14/11 12:49:00 PM: Recycle backup: The Backup Set was reset

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  • 3 months later...

I also had a problem where Verify would run forever and never complete. Backups using the same disk media set, which have only one member, would still work. Retrospect 8 and 9 both had problem.

 

The hang consists of an endless loop, with error like that shown below repeated over and over in the log file.

 

 

 

+ Executing Verify at 1/19/12 (Activity Thread 2)

To Media Set RS8 iDad Backup...

Additional error information for Disk Media Set member "1-RS8 iDad Backup",

Can't read to file /Volumes/Backup2/Retrospect/RS8 iDad Backup/1-RS8 iDad Backup/AH001160.rdb, error -1101 ( file/directory not found)

> !Trouble reading: "1-RS8 iDad Backup" (104090091), error -102 ( trouble communicating)

 

In the Console window, it says "Verify summary window: File Resynchronizing (this may take a while)..."

 

 

If I stop the verify, the console would show the media set was busy even after the verify stopped. Only solution I found to make the media set available again was to re-boot the computer.

 

I verified the file it is looking for,

/Volumes/Backup2/Retrospect/RS8 iDad Backup/1-RS8 iDad Backup/AH001160.rdb

is indeed missing. Had same problem with Verify never completing, due to missing (different) .rdb files, on two other disk media sets as well.

 

Tried re-building the catalog files on the three problem media sets. All three re-builds were successful. All three media sets now pass verification.

 

IMHO, Retrospect 8 and 9 should handle this type of error more gracefully.

 

-> Kent

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