Retrospect decided not to backup filemaker databases

[fchieli]

I have Retrospect Desktop 6 running on an OSX machine.

 

On that machine several network volumes gets mounted and backed up using Retrospect.

 

One of the files to be backed up is a very important Filemaker pro database.

 

In the past after a Filemaker crash with consequent data corruption I've been always able to retrieve a copy from the night before back up.

 

3 months ago we upgraded to Retrospect 6. 4 days ago after a Filemaker crash I tried to retrieve a copy of the file and found out , (HORRIFIED!!!) that Retrospect decided to ignore the file , it never backed it up!!!

 

The latest version I have dates back to 3 months ago.

 

Looking at the logs Retrospect has nothing wrong to report as far as backing up our ACCOUNTING SERVER.

 

I rotate 2 sets of tapes every other day , religiously , now my job is at stakes because of a software error.

 

I've never had any problems until version 5. Then version 5 started freaking out with errors -43 errors. So I've upgraded to version 6 , and the error reporting got mor detailed (at least I knew which subdirectory was failing).The Filemaker Pro file gets properly closed every night , not to have a locked file error , off course.

 

Now version 6 let me down big time.

 

Anyone had a similar experience? And why would Retrospect declare in the log "no files needed to be copied" even when I know files were modified?

 

Also , if this databse file gets modified every day , why is it that trying to retrieve it from an older set of 11 tapes , I find only 4 instances of the file? Shouldn't there be one instance per day??

[CallMeDave]

Quote:

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I've never had any problems until version 5

 

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Were you having problems running Retrospect 5 under Mac OS 9? Or did your problems start when you began to use Mac OS X?

 

Once you set up your Retrospect configuration, did you ever do any spot Restore operations?

 

Did you ever use the Reports->Contents feature to Browse the files that Retrospect backed up?

 

Did you check the Log periodically to confirm that the proper amount of data or number of files were being copied after Execution?

 

If you originally used this scheme under Mac OS 9, then upgraded to Mac OS X, did you follow the instructions in the User Guide for accessing network volumes? Specifically, did you configure Retrospect to mount the volumes itself, as opposed to you mounting the volumes from within the Finder?

 

If this last item is true, then this was a user error, not a software error. The issue of backing up mounted AFP volumes has been addressed many times here on the Forum.

 

Dave

[shadowspawn]

The bad news is that there are a number of ways to shoot yourself in the foot with mounting network volumes, as Dave concludes.

 

Two suggestions

1) Switch to the Reports tab in the Retrospect Directory window and click Reports. Find your problem volume in the Backup Report. How many elapsed days since it was last backed up?

2) Can you post the log entries from a backup that says no files needed to be backed up from your problem volume?

 

Two observations

1) I personally much prefer using a Retrospect Client rather than using network mounted volumes.

2) FileMaker Server supports scheduled exports of databases. These backup copies can be backed up by Retrospect since they are not open by FileMaker. This avoids needing to shutdown FileMaker Server which has had some bugs leading to corruption when closing databases!