sciascia1 Posted July 12, 2012 Report Share Posted July 12, 2012 Hi There, I was having this issue in v8 and it was suggested I upgrade to v9 (Retrospect support) as I was told v9 has better disk handling - but after upgrading, I'm still having the same issue. Basically, Retrospect will only use a few hundred gig of a disk before asking for a new member: The member is set to use 100% of the disk The disk has 3.8TB available in the finder Under "Members" in Retrospect, there is 3.8TB free (see attached: <backups.png>) The disk is mounted and is usable/browsable in the Finder But Retrospect refuses to write to the disk (see attached: <backups-2.png>) To remove any possible variables caused by old components from v8, what is the best we to remove all traces of Retrospect so I can perform a fresh install of v9? I used the v8 Uninstaller to remove v8 last time but after installing v9, all my v8 scripts etc were there - which seemed weird to me. It's been months since I've had a complete backup and really need some help putting this to bed. Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennart_T Posted July 13, 2012 Report Share Posted July 13, 2012 Did you start a new media set in version 9? Or did you continue to use the same media set you had in version 8? In the latter case, try recreating the catalog file. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sciascia1 Posted July 13, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 13, 2012 Thanks Lennart, All the media sets and scripts were there after upgrading to v9 (which I found confusing) so I didn't recreate everything. I think, you're right, I need to start again but how do I completely remove Retrospect (I mean completely) so none of the old scripts/catalogues show up after I do a fresh install of v9? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennart_T Posted July 13, 2012 Report Share Posted July 13, 2012 Thanks Lennart, All the media sets and scripts were there after upgrading to v9 (which I found confusing) so I didn't recreate everything. I think, you're right, I need to start again but how do I completely remove Retrospect (I mean completely) so none of the old scripts/catalogues show up after I do a fresh install of v9? I think all you need to do is a recatalog. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twickland Posted July 13, 2012 Report Share Posted July 13, 2012 ... how do I completely remove Retrospect (I mean completely) so none of the old scripts/catalogues show up after I do a fresh install of v9? That information is stored in the files Config80.dat and Config80.bak. First, quit the Retrospect console and stop the Engine. Then go to /Library/Application\ Support/Retrospect and drag those two files to the trash. Restart the Engine and relaunch the console. You'll need to re-enter your license code, and will then have a clean configuration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted July 17, 2012 Report Share Posted July 17, 2012 The disk is mounted and is usable/browsable in the Finder But Retrospect refuses to write to the disk Looking at the pictures it appears that "1-NightlyBackup" successfully handled 4T before asking for disk 2, so we know the software is capable of writing an entire volume. But you provide no description of any hardware differences between volumes 1 and 2. What sort of physical disk are they? How are they connected to the Engine host machine? Do they share any hardware in common (external case, connecting cable, etc)? And what does the Log say? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sciascia1 Posted July 18, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 18, 2012 Thanks heaps for your reply But you provide no description of any hardware differences between volumes 1 and 2. Both disks are identical Stardom SR4 (4 disk raids) connected via eSATA to the same Stardom SJ20-x8 eSATA PCI card - even the eSATA cables are identical. I haven't had a chance to remove and reinstall Retrospect yet (busy with design work) so am hoping this will work. And what does the Log say? In v8 I saw a connection error (disk not found I think) and since upgrading to v9 it states that the member has corrupt data from another set - which is what Lennart Thelander was suggesting. I'm planning on: - Completely removing Retrospect - Installing v9 - Recreating all catalogues, members and scripts - Running the backups again and test Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twickland Posted July 18, 2012 Report Share Posted July 18, 2012 In v8 I saw a connection error (disk not found I think) and since upgrading to v9 it states that the member has corrupt data from another set - which is what Lennart Thelander was suggesting. Under some circumstances, Retro 8 would misbehave and create a kind of nested version of a backup set member. If you haven't yet erased or reformatted the disks, you might want to check this out. When done properly, a disk backup set has the following directory structure: At the root level of the volume (or Favorite Folder, if you've specified that as your destination) is a folder named Retrospect. Inside that folder is a file named Backup Media and a folder titled with the name of your media set. Inside this folder is a folder titled with the number of your media set (e.g., 1-[Your Media Set]). Inside this latter folder should be a bunch of sequentially-numbered files with .rdb extensions that contain your actual backup data. There should be no other folders within this directory hierarchy. When Retrospect misbehaves, new folders are created inside the above folders, which effectively corrupts the media set. We had this happen once or twice and attempted unsuccessfully to repair the media set catalog after deleting the spurious nested files and folders. We ended up having to recycle the media set. We haven't experienced this problem since upgrading to Retro 9; I'm hoping this means that the problem has been fixed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sciascia1 Posted July 18, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 18, 2012 Thanks for that, I uninstalled/erased and started again yesterday - am about 1/4 of the way through the initial backup. Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sciascia1 Posted July 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 22, 2012 OK, so the first backup after a full re-install has finished yesterday but I'm now experiencing some weird behavior. The script was due to run again but in the activities pane, there's a yellow triangle and an error "Waiting for NightlyBackup" (the script name). If I go to the scripts pane and try to manually run the script, I notice the pencil with the line crossed through it like the NightlyBackup is still running - even though the the activities screen says noting is running. I can click to run the script and the little script icon floats over to the activities pane but nothing appears to be running. I've tried: - Quitting the console and re-opened it but still the same issue. - Restarting the server But no luck - does anyone know what I could try? Cheers Ben Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sciascia1 Posted July 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 22, 2012 This morning it's now running the backup. I'm kind of confused about the console - it often seems to display out of date info? It's obviously completely separate from Retrospect so if it's having issues, it doesn't accurately reflect what Retrospect is actually doing - is that right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennart_T Posted July 22, 2012 Report Share Posted July 22, 2012 I'm kind of confused about the console - it often seems to display out of date info? It's obviously completely separate from Retrospect so if it's having issues, it doesn't accurately reflect what Retrospect is actually doing - is that right? Yes, the console is separate from the engine. The engine is the part of Retrospect that actually runs the backups. There are a few users who have problem with the console not displaying up to date info.Since the engine is separate, you can quit the console without affecting the backups. Then just launch it ("Retrospect" in the "Applications" folder). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sciascia1 Posted July 25, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 25, 2012 I can't get the Console to reflect what the engine is doing without completely restarting the server. The console just displays a "Waiting for NightlyBackup" warning triangle but doesn't actually show any activity - is there a fix for this? Quiting Console doesn't work and I can't figure out what the engine is actually working on - or if it's backing up etc. Are there any terminal commands for Retrospect that I could use to check the status of the engine? Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennart_T Posted July 25, 2012 Report Share Posted July 25, 2012 I have never experienced the problems you have, so I don't know. Maybe searching the forum could give you some clues? Or Google it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.