Latest update - backup reports better on mac

[Don Lee]

I have both Windows and Mac installations, and I have recently updated a Windows site to v12.5, and a Mac site to 14.5. I see the emails from these systems is different now.

 

The mac version produces "pretty" HTML formatted emails, including the new "backup report", which is very nice.

 

The same option exists on Windows, but produces a mass of raw text that I have not yet deciphered. It may be a machine-readable report that imports nicely somewhere, but I don't know where. I assure you that it is not very "human readable".

 

Is this expected? Am I missing some option somewhere that causes the emails to be "pretty" from Windows Retro v12.5? What is intended to be don with this "report"?

 

Now I am generally NOT a fan of "pretty" email. I would much prefer plain text in 90% of the cases, but…. in this case the output from Windows is a little too opaque, even for me.

 

Thanks for your help,

[mbennett]

No, the reports are pretty ugly, you're not missing any settings that I know about.  I get a bunch of these overnight every night, and basically I just look at the first line.  If it says zero errors and zero warnings I don't continue to read the body of the email unless there's something in particular I'm wanting to monitor.  I delete the email and go to the next one.

 

The only ones worth investigating are failed jobs, and even then I usually watch for patterns of failures over one or more days. Some jobs, such as cloud backups, will cough up a warning or two but complete successfully, so I don't get too excited unless something dire seems to be happening.

[Mayoff]

Do you have a screenshot of the "mass of raw text that I have not yet deciphered"? This doesn't sound normal.

[optotronic]

Here's one, sent last night from Retrospect for Windows Desktop Version 12.6.0.157.

I tried setting up a header and footer as is supported in 12.6, but it didn't make a difference.  I wasn't really surprised, as the email says

Quote

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

 

[DavidHertzberg]

On 11/15/2017 at 5:16 PM, optotronic said:

Here's one, sent last night from Retrospect for Windows Desktop Version 12.6.0.157.

I tried setting up a header and footer as is supported in 12.6, but it didn't make a difference.  I wasn't really surprised, as the email says

 

Don Lee has also posted about this here on the Retrospect Mac forum.  The next post will be my boilerplate one to tell optotronic how to post his sample as a Support Case, so Mayoff is sure to get it.

Edited November 17, 2017 by DavidHertzberg
Bolded optotronic's name, as is my custom for forum posters

[DavidHertzberg]

If you think this is a piece of bad design that should be fixed by Retrospect Inc., you will have to submit it as a Support Case.  For English speakers, that is done by going here http://www.retrospect.com/en/support/contact, and filling out the form (sorry, I don't know what the equivalent addresses are for non-English speakers, but they can figure it out from their appropriate Retrospect website address).  IMHO this is quite reasonable; obliging you to fill out the form provides Retrospect Inc. with useful details about your Retrospect installation that they would otherwise have to query you for.

As a result, Retrospect Inc. will pay no attention to your post in this forum.  On 12 December 2016, in response to a letter I snail-mailed to Mayoff,  I received an e-mail through a Mayoff account that was signed by JG Heithcock, CEO, Retrospect, Inc. http://www.retrospect.com/en/about#exec.  In it he says "From reading your letter, I think the main issue is that you view the forums as a good place to talk to us, Retrospect, Inc. But we view the audience of the forums as restricted to our customers [my emphasis]. The one caveat we have made on that is for feature requests, largely as we would like to see if other customers also agree on the desirability and feature set for these requests."

That means that the only audience for "Retrospect bad design reports" in this forum will be other administrators of Retrospect.  Nevertheless, by posting in this forum you are providing a useful service to us fellow administrator peasants.  Thank you.

Please be aware that the "description of your issue" in the Support Case form is IME limited to about 2000 characters by the Support Case software.  If you go over that limit your "description" will be broken up into a "description" plus one or more "additional notes".  The same is true for any additional notes you may later post yourself.  I suggest that, to avoid the appearance of choppiness in your Support Case, you create your case in a post in this forum and then copy it paragraph-by-paragraph to your Support Case.

Note that, despite the new dialogs in the Retrospect Inc. Support Case system urging you to sign up for Annual Support and Maintenance, Mayoff has verbally assured me that you don't need to be signed up for ASM to report a problem—only to get personal assistance with coping with it.

If this post sounds formulaic, that's because I intend it to be.  I intend to post it in every new thread that appears in this forum, unless the OP indicates that he/she has or will open a Support Case for the problem that the thread reports.  Of course, Mayoff could take 5 minutes of his time to post a slightly-more-polite version of this post as a  "sticky thread" that will always appear at the top of the forum.  I don't intend to hold my breath until that happens (insert appropriate smiley here).

Edited December 13, 2017 by DavidHertzberg
Clarifications to make all paragraphs apply to reports of bad design

[optotronic]

Thanks, David.  I submitted a support case.  I don't have ASM, so I don't expect a response, but I prefer they know about problems I encounter, especially those that cost me time.

 

Quote

Don Lee has also posted about this here on the Retrospect Mac forum.

I saw that, thanks.  I was more interested in seeing whether a new feature in the new version of Retrospect that I purchased would improve my workflow than I was of writing a replacement notification mechanism.

[DavidHertzberg]

1 hour ago, optotronic said:

Thanks, David.  I submitted a support case.  I don't have ASM, so I don't expect a response, but I prefer they know about problems I encounter, especially those that cost me time.

....

You should automatically get an e-mail reply—that will simply recap your original problem statement—on every new Support Case you submit.  If you don't get one, as happened to me about a month ago on a Support Case I submitted, it means Retrospect Tech Support's system has broken down (they fixed it later).

[optotronic]

Well, I did get a response, and after ~5 follow-ups and replies, I was told that the problem is a known issue with email servers that don't use SSL for authentication, and that it will be fixed in the March release.