Error 557 Transaction Already Complete

[Guest LarryS19]

After months of successful backups, one client for one particular backup (essentially full system) started generating "Trouble reading files, error -557 ( transaction already complete)" errors. I've tried cycling the Retrospect client, cycling the Retrospect server, and finally, rebooting both server and client, all to no avail.

 

I can find a few mentions of this error for Windows Retrospect but nothing on the Macintosh side. Any ideas?

 

Server Retrospect 8.2.0 OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard latest)

Client Retro Client 6.3.029 OS X 10.7.2 (Lion latest)

[Lennart_T]

Usually, all you have to do is restarting the client computer. May you should try a safe boot (of the client)?

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1564

[Guest LarryS19]

A lot of looking at stuff and determined the problem was /.MobileBackups, the Lion enhancement to Time Machine that keeps "recent snapshots" on the hard drive of portable Macintoshes (Mac Book and Mac Book Pro) for recovering previous versions, etc. (obviously does nothing for a complete hard drive failure). Added .MobileBackups as an exclusion in the backup rules and it backed up OK.

 

Like the separate disk Time Machine backups, I assume these Mobile Backups use hard links which may be what was confusing Retrospect.

[Tree]

Well I was getting this Error -557 as well, after having done a "repurposing" of computers wherein my machine (with the Retrospect Engine installed) was handed down to another employee on the network. I figured I would just leave the engine installed where it was, as I could manage things via the Console on my new machine. However, the process of migrating the other employee's account onto that old machine ended up getting the Retrospect Client also installed on that machine.

 

I reasoned that it shouldn't make any difference, the Engine could still invoke a client that is on the same physical machine, and for the most part this is true. But in my "Sources" list I did have an option among two... either the HD volume presented by the Client, or the HD presented by the Engine, as it were. The HD presented by the Engine (i.e. it was not nested under the name of a client) could simply not be removed as a Source. I tried removing all of the Favorite folders from the HD presented by the Engine, so that only those presented by the client could be accessed by a script, but I still got Error -557.  Then, I went the other route, re-creating those favorite folders under the HD presented by the Engine and setting those to be used in lieu of the same-named Favorites from the Client. At that point, the scripts finally worked, without an Error -557.

 

So it appears that Retrospect doesn't like to talk to a Client installed on the same machine as the Engine. It's like the Engine behaves as though it is a privileged Client in itself; even if you try to force it to negotiate only with the Client, the Engine still gets to jump in front and throw up a -557 message.  Hope this helps!