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How do I adjust backup scripts to accommodate renaming of destination locations?


haggis999

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I have just made a major reorganisation of the folder structure on the NAS unit I use to store my Retrospect backup files. The destinations in all my backup scripts therefore need adjusting. How exactly do I do this to ensure a smooth transition to the new folders without losing any of the previous backup information?

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haggis99,

In the "What's New" chapter of the Retrospect Windows 11 User's Guide, page 14  says "Retrospect v11 for Windows and Retrospect v13 for Mac now allow customers to move the member folders of disk sets to new locations and let Retrospect know by simply editing the members and picking the new location. There are scenarios where moving these files is preferable to a set transfer."  Presumably this is what you want to do.

Unfortunately these sentences were not moved elsewhere in the Retrospect Windows 12 UG, nor were they amplified.  Instead they were simply overlaid by the new "What's New" chapter.

Being a Retrospect Mac administrator, I don't offhand know how to edit Members in Retrospect Windows.  There is an Edit Pencil capability in the Retrospect Mac equivalent of dealing with Backup Sets.  I assume that, if you click the Show Members button shown in the dialog on page 410 of the Retrospect Windows 11 UG, you will find something equivalent to that edit pencil that will let you edit the Members and pick their new locations.  Retrospect Windows administrators, fee free to chime in with more particulars.

BTW you haven't said in this thread what version of Retrospect Windows you are using, but I see from one of your recent posts that you are using Retrospect Windows 12.

 

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Hi David,
My previous attempts to obtain guidance from the Retrospect 12 for Windows User Guide had been unsuccessful, so thanks for that useful information (and apologies for not making it clear I was using version 12). I will now dig a little deeper and see if I can do the edit you have suggested.

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I've just realised that you may have misunderstood what I was trying to do. It's not a matter of wanting to "move member folders of disk sets to new locations". It is the Backup Set itself that now has a new name and path on my NAS. This Backup Set has no subfolders and contains about 4,000 rdb files.

EDIT:  Please forget this post! I misunderstood the terminology. It is indeed a member folder I am trying to modify.

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I am currently looking at the Member Properties dialogue box for the relevant member of my backup set and simply trying to change its storage location, but I just get the message "Cannot use the specified backup data folder". I can browse to this folder from within the dialogue box, so what might be going wrong here?

After my NAS (called BonzoNAS) died recently, it was rebuilt and had the data restored from a backup NAS. Previously, the member called 1-Backup Set NAS1 was stored in the following path and the Member Properties dialogue box successfully used a location of \\BONZONAS\Backup\.

  • Backup/Retrospect/Backup Set NAS1/

I tried to store this member folder in a new path on the NAS as follows, but a location of \\BONZONAS\Retrospect\ doesn't work. I have tried moving 1-Backup Set NAS1 to a variety of different subfolders but I still can't find a path that is acceptable to Retrospect. It is insisting that I use a volume name of Backup on my NAS and is also appears to be insisting that I use a subfolder called Retrospect.

  • Retrospect/Backup Set NAS1/

In other words, the only location that works is when I recreate the original path on the NAS! Is there a hidden secret to relocating member locations?

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haggis999,

I took a look at two out of my three Media Set (Retrospect Mac name for Backup Set) member storage USB drives—the third one is in my bank safe deposit box.  Each of them has a "Retrospect" folder on it.  Within that folder is a folder with the name of the Media Set—e.g. "Media Set Red"—and also a zero-byte Unix executable named "Backup Media" that was created in August 2015 (when I first started using modern Retrospect with Disk Media Sets) and hasn't been modified since.  Within e.g. the "Media Set Red" folder is a file for my single member, named e.g. "1-Media Set Red".  (It just so happens that within my "Retrospect" folder on the USB drive named "G-Drive White" I also had, not only the "Media Set White" folder that should be there, but also a "Media Set Red" folder I mistakenly created there in January 2018—which I've just deleted.)  The foregoing is the structure required for Retrospect Mac; the structure required for Retrospect Windows may differ.

I also did an Advanced Search of the Forums for "'Backup Set' member location".  This 2007 post seems to be the best previous answer to your problem; it says you then had to do a Rebuild of the Catalog File, and the post following it told how to avoid the "Cannot use the specified backup data folder" message.  There is also this October 2017 post by me—replying to a post by you, suggesting that you create a subvolume on your (presumably old and now dead) NAS.

 

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Your first link is interesting. It quotes Retrospect tech support saying that problems with relocating the backup set are on their bugfix list. That was over 11 years ago!!

Earlier this afternoon, I searched the forum for "Cannot use the specified backup data folder", but failed to find any thread except this one I raised today. However, my search was done without encapsulating the phrase in quotes. Adding the quotes at the beginning and end makes a surprising difference to the search results.

With regard to your second link, I never did get to the bottom of why Retrospect no longer autolaunched in a reliable manner, despite finding a way to nudge Windows 10 into rediscovering my NAS drives. Certain events, such as my recent NAS rebuilds, made Win 10 forget how to automatically discover my NAS units on the network, but mapping the drive to a drive letter was the key to jogging its memory (the drive mapping could then be deleted). Since then, I have just been starting Retrospect manually every morning.

Many thanks for your help on this. I will try again to fix my current problem...

 

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On 3/17/2018 at 1:39 PM, haggis999 said:

Your first link is interesting. It quotes Retrospect tech support saying that problems with relocating the backup set are on their bugfix list. That was over 11 years ago!!

Earlier this afternoon, I searched the forum for "Cannot use the specified backup data folder", but failed to find any thread except this one I raised today. However, my search was done without encapsulating the phrase in quotes. Adding the quotes at the beginning and end makes a surprising difference to the search results.

With regard to your second link, I never did get to the bottom of why Retrospect no longer autolaunched in a reliable manner, despite finding a way to nudge Windows 10 into rediscovering my NAS drives. Certain events, such as my recent NAS rebuilds, made Win 10 forget how to automatically discover my NAS units on the network, but mapping the drive to a drive letter was the key to jogging its memory (the drive mapping could then be deleted). Since then, I have just been starting Retrospect manually every morning.

Many thanks for your help on this. I will try again to fix my current problem...

 

haggis999,

If you read between the lines (or read the the references) for the "History" section of the Wikipedia article, you will realize that the Retrospect developers at EMC/Roxio/RetrospectInc. had many more vital problems to contend with from 2008 through 2012.  Thus IMHO getting ready the fix I mentioned here for relocating Backup Set members by the end of 2015 is not exceptional dawdling under the circumstances.  Consider that EMC announced a Wake-on-LAN feature for Retrospect Mac 8 in early 2009, but it definitely still doesn't work for non-Proactive scripts (I don't run Proactive scripts myself, but the announcement for Retrospect 15 implies something new for Wake-on-LAN is being done for them) backing up clients as of 2016—there's even a mention that it doesn't on pages 329  and 525 of the Retrospect Windows 11 User's Guide!

Yes, in Search facilities for most applications, putting a phrase in quotes helps to find it.  In fact in the Retrospect Forums Search facility, you need to put an error number such as "-530" in quotes; otherwise it will return also posts that merely contain the number after the minus sign—such as 530 whether or not it is preceded by a minus sign.

Speaking of -530 errors, which I think you may have been getting for your NAS drives, I've contributed to or started several threads on that subject.  I started getting them again a year ago in January, but found a "sacrificial script" workaround that worked until a couple of months ago.  I then adopted this manual workaround, whose Retrospect Windows equivalent may be slightly less effort than starting Retrospect manually every morning.  However I recently suggested this unconventional approach for administrators who have a different problem with running Retrospect Windows auto-launched via the Retrospect Launcher; it may also solve your problem without repeated hands-on effort.

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I'm aware that Retrospect has had a chequered history. However, it still provides a very powerful backup tool, despite the sluggishness in fixing bugs highlighted many years ago. More to the point, I'm not aware of any other software that does a similar job at a similar price.

I'm used to the idea of using quotes in other forums to limit a search to the whole phrase, thus eliminating all the partial matches, but in this case I didn't get ANY match for that error message (apart from this thread) until I encapsulated it in quotes. That seems a little odd to my eyes. Why does it need the quotes to find a mention of that exact error message in the 2007 thread you mentioned earlier?

It's some time since I looked at my issues with autolaunching Retrospect, so I can't remember if an -530 error was involved, but I'll keep your comments in mind when I find the time to look at this again.

 

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haggis999,

Your question about Forums Search is very apt.  In fact the way I found the 2007 post was by searching on "'Backup Set' member location" without the outer quotes, in other words with quotes only around "Backup Set".  Indeed I just tried searching on "Cannot use the specified backup data folder" in quotes, and it did not find any posts other than the three in this thread.  Strange!

As far as  -530 errors are concerned, the real point of my paragraph above mentioning them was to suggest—as the linked-to "unconventional approach"—that you consider running Retrospect.exe continuously rather than under control of the Retrospect Launcher.  The P.S. in the post I linked to indicates, to the extent I can easily gather evidence using Retrospect Mac 14—which does not have a Launcher, that leaving Retrospect.exe running all the time will likely only cost you on the close order of 250MB real memory when it is not performing any activity.  That is IMHO an acceptable cost in these days of cheap multi-gigabyte RAM; my Mac Pro "backup server" has 7GB RAM, the last 4GB of which cost me less than US$50.  Doing so would AFAIK enable you to eliminate any permissions problems.

Edited by DavidHertzberg
Drastically reduced the extra RAM cost in next-to-last sentence of 2nd prgf., after doing a search of my old Ars Technica posts; added comma in 2nd sentc. of 2nd prgf.
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The suggestion provided via your latest link is that if you change the directory structure in some way you will need to rebuild the catalogue file so that it points to the correct location. I'm not sure how that works when Retrospect appears to actively prevent you from changing the location. Until I have made that change, then surely any catalogue rebuild will simply continue to use the existing location?

However, perhaps the rebuild process provides a different way to make the location change within Retrospect to match the change already made on my NAS.

 

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After two and three-quarter hours, Retrospect has now completed rebuilding the catalogue and the log says that it was completed successfully. However, I am now having problems in trying to restart the previous daily backup script for this backup set. 

The new path to my backup set is as follows,

  •  \\BONZONAS\Retrospect\Backup Set NAS1\1-Backup Set NAS1

However, the script is trying to use the following path, which obviously fails with a  'file/directory not found' error,

  •  \\BONZONAS\Retrospect\Backup Set NAS1\1-Backup Set NAS1\Retrospect\Backup Set NAS1\1-Backup Set NAS1

Once again , I find myself back in the Member Properties dialogue box unable to correct the location infornation. I appear to be going in circles! 

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I've just done a trial move of the Snowball-WS [B1611] Backup Set on my NAS.

  • Original location of Backup Set files: \\Boxer\BackupSets-Other\Retrospect\Snowball-WS [B1611]\1-Snowball-WS [B1611]\*.rdb
  • New location of Back Set files: \\Boxer\BackupSets-Temporary\Retrospect\Snowball-WS [B1611]\1-Snowball-WS [B1611]\*.rdb

This is what I did:

  1. Configure > Backup Sets
  2. In the Backup Sets dialog select Snowball-WS [B1611] and click Properties...
  3. In the Snowball-WS [B1611] Properties dialog select the Members tab
  4. On the Members tab select 1-Snowball-WS [B1611] on BackupSets-Other and click Properties
  5. In Member Properties for 1-Snowball-WS [B1... dialog Location for backup data folder: will display \\BOXER\BackupSets-Other\
  6. Click Browse
  7. In the dialog that appears (labelled Retrospect) offering places to browse click Advanced...
  8. In the next dialog (also labelled Retrospect) where it asks Please enter the UNC or HTTP path for the volume or subvolume: enter \\BOXER\BackupSets-Temporary and click OK
  9. In Member Properties for 1-Snowball-WS [B1... dialog Location for backup data folder: will now display \\BOXER\BackupSets-Temporary\
  10. Click OK to save the changes
  11. On the Members tab in the Snowball-WS [B1611] Properties dialog the member is now shown as 1-Snowball-WS [B1611] on BackupSets-Temporary
  12. Exit the Snowball-WS [B1611] Properties dialog and the Backup Set is now working in its new location

I've used my NAS name (BOXER), share names (BackupSets-Other, BackupSets-Temporary) and Backup Set name (Snowball-WS [B1611]) here for simplicity (of writing) so you will have to change these as appropriate.

I move the location of active Backup Sets on my NAS quite often and this has always worked for me. I've also never had to rebuild the catalogue after moving a Backup Set.

Edited by Scillonian
Clarification of NAS, share and Backup Set naming.
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Many thanks for that suggestion, though the only difference I can see between your procedure and what I have done before is that you used the Advanced option to specify the new location (I simply typed the UNC location directly in the Member Properties box). However, I have tried your method. Sadly, it made no difference. I still get the "Cannot use the specified backup data folder" error ar Step 10 of your procedure.

What version of Retrospect are you using? Does your method work if you try to use a new location as follows?

\\Boxer\Retrospect\Snowball-WS [B1611]\1-Snowball-WS [B1611]\*.rdb

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I've cracked one of my problems. Retrospect appears to insist that the backup set folder is located in a folder called Retrospect, but won't accept that folder being in the top level of the NAS hierarchy (what Synology calls a 'shared folder').

I changed to the following structure and now all appears to be well with the backup set I had recatalogued.

  • \\BONZONAS\PCBackup\Retrospect\Backup Set NAS1\1-Backup Set NAS1\*.rdb

However, I still have the same old error with another backup set, even though it now has the same new path of  \\BONZONAS\PCBackup\Retrospect\. Perhaps I also need to rebuild its catalogue before it will work.

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32 minutes ago, haggis999 said:

I think I've cracked it. Retrospect appears to insist that the backup set is located in a folder called Retrospect, but won't accept that folder being in the top level of the NAS hierarchy.

I changed to the following structure and now all appears to be well.

  • \\BONZONAS\PCBackup\Retrospect\Backup Set NAS1\1-Backup Set NAS1\*.rdb

Interesting.  I have a Retrospect folder, containing a Media Set Red folder, at the top level of G-Drive Red.  But G-Drive Red is a prosaic USB3 portable HDD, not an exotic NAS.  And of course I'm using Retrospect Mac 14 on my "backup server", not Retrospect Windows 12.

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Just looked at your naming structure again and realised why it wasn't working.

Backup Sets have to exist in a parent folder named Retrospect. In the case of a NAS (or other network share) the Retrospect folder has to exist withing a share folder. It can't be the share folder. I should have noticed the error earlier!

23 minutes ago, haggis999 said:

However, I still have the same old error with another backup set, even though it now has the same new path of  \\BONZONAS\PCBackup\Retrospect\. Perhaps I also need to rebuild its catalogue before it will work.

In Member Properties for ... dialog the Location for backup data folder: should be \\BONZONAS\PCBackup\ if this Backup Set is in the same Retrospect folder as Backup Set NAS1.

1 hour ago, haggis999 said:

... the only difference I can see between your procedure and what I have done before is that you used the Advanced option to specify the new location (I simply typed the UNC location directly in the Member Properties box).

I use the Advanced option because direct entry of the UNC path doesn't always work for me. Retrospect will sometimes give an error along the lines of the network resource does not exist. This may due to my Backup Sets being in hidden shares on my NAS.

1 hour ago, haggis999 said:

What version of Retrospect are you using? Does your method work if you try to use a new location as follows?

I'm using Retrospect 15 Desktop for Windows but this has worked for me since 7.x of Retrospect when I started using a NAS for backups. (Used tape before that.)

 

10 minutes ago, DavidHertzberg said:

Interesting.  I have a Retrospect folder, containing a Media Set Red folder, at the top level of G-Drive Red.  But G-Drive Red is a prosaic USB3 portable HDD, not an exotic NAS.  And of course I'm using Retrospect Mac 14 on my "backup server", not Retrospect Windows 12.

[From the Windows side] The Retrospect folder can exist as a top level folder on any HDD connect directly to the Backup Server either internally or externally. On an SMB share (e.g. Samba on a NAS) the Retrospect folder must reside in a share folder which in haggis999's case would be PCBackup.

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1 minute ago, Scillonian said:

In Member Properties for ... dialog the Location for backup data folder: should be \\BONZONAS\PCBackup\ if this Backup Set is in the same Retrospect folder as Backup Set NAS1.

That's exactly what I tried to enter, but it triggered the previously mentioned error.

I'm now rebuilding the second catalogue file to see if that fixes it. Other people have reported the need for a catalogue rebuild to avoid this error, so it's a little strange that you have not been affected in the same way.

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Unfortunately, the rebuild of my other catalogue generated quite a few errors, as you can see in the attached log file. To make it easier to focus on the errors, this file has been edited to remove most of the successful verification messages. The log starts by correctly scanning  \\BONZONAS\PCBackup\Retrospect\Backup Set NAS1e\1-Backup Set NAS1(e)\ , but then goes on to try and create various records using the incorrect path of \\BONZONAS\PCBackup\Retrospect\Backup Set NAS1e\1-Backup Set NAS1(e)\Retrospect\Backup Set NAS1(e)\1-Backup Set NAS1(e). I don't understand this or any of the other errors.  

Unlike with my first catalogue, the rebuild has not helped with changing the location of this backup set in Retrospect. I still can't set the correct location in Member Properties.

 

EDIT:  In case it is relevant, Backup Set NAS1(e) is dedicated to backing up my Outlook email folder and my associated backup script uses the block level incremental backup option.

Retrospect rebuild errors for 1-Backup Set NAS1(e) - March 2018.docx

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Hopefully your problems are down to a simple typing error.

11 hours ago, haggis999 said:

\\BONZONAS\PCBackup\Retrospect\Backup Set NAS1e\1-Backup Set NAS1(e)

Your folder structure is invalid. It should be \\BONZONAS\PCBackup\Retrospect\Backup Set NAS1(e)\1-Backup Set NAS1(e) (based on your previous posts) not \\BONZONAS\PCBackup\Retrospect\Backup Set NAS1e\1-Backup Set NAS1(e).

The member folder name is always the Backup Set folder name with an n- prefix added. 

 

You can ignore the following if you like but I'll leave it here for the moment to show how sometimes it easy to overlook what it there in plain sight. I should noticed it in your previous post!

I've had a look at the log.

Is \\BONZONAS a home-built NAS or a commercial unit such as QNAP or Synology?

Quote

                                Scanned \\BONZONAS\PCBackup\Retrospect\Backup Set NAS1e\1-Backup Set NAS1(e)\ up to backup set data file index 1772

Retrospect can at least see that there are files in the 1-Backup Set NAS1(e) folder.

Quote

                                Using thorough rebuild

Retrospect is doing a thorough rebuild of the catalogue by reading the contents of the .rdb files. Had you deleted the .session files from the folder 1-Backup Set NAS1(e) before starting the rebuild?

Quote

                                [*] ArcDisk::arcExportSessionFileTo: failed to create "\\BONZONAS\PCBackup\Retrospect\Backup Set NAS1e\1-Backup Set NAS1(e)\Retrospect\Backup Set NAS1(e)\1-Backup Set NAS1(e)\AA130340988226970000.session" (13/01/2014 15:00:22) (voldex: 0): error -1101 (file/directory not found)

Retrospect is trying to create the AA130340988226970000.session file to a location that does not exist. For some reason that I can't fathom the path for the member folder has been almost duplicated. \\BONZONAS\PCBackup is the NAS and share. \Retrospect\Backup Set NAS1e\1-Backup Set NAS1(e) is as it should be. \Retrospect\Backup Set NAS1(e)\1-Backup Set NAS1(e) is almost duplicated part.  ** And this is when I realised it was hopefully a simple typing error **

 

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Well, you certainly spotted an anomaly I had failed to see for myself, but it wasn't the result of a recent spelling error.

I lost the original copy of the Retrospect backup set when my main Synology NAS died a couple of weeks ago. Retrospect backed up my Outlook folder to this NAS three times a week for several years without any problems. Any changes to this NAS were also replicated on a regular basis to my backup Synology NAS and the folder name of Backup Set NAS1e is how it appears on my backup copy of the Retrospect backup set.

I don't know anything about session files, but I certainly didn't knowingly delete them at any stage.

I have now renamed the folder containing 1-Backup Set NAS1(e) as Backup Set NAS1(e) and I will make another attempt to rebuild the catalogue.

Many thanks for your help.

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