Disable proactive Retrospect backups when on battery?

[AntonRang]

Maybe I am missing something, but I don’t see any way to configure the Retrospect Client so that proactive backups only happen when on AC power. I’d rather not have my laptops decide to back up when they are not plugged in, particularly since those backups often fail when the laptop goes to sleep. Is this something which could be added in the future, or is it already there and I haven’t discovered it? Thanks!

[DavidHertzberg]

AntonRang,

You're right; there doesn't appear to be any way to configure the Retrospect Client—even by holding down the Command key to get the Advanced tab when you open System Preferences->Retrospect Client, or the Proactive Options for a Proactive script, to require that a client machine be on AC power to be backed up by a Proactive script.

You don't say in your OP, but I assume you are still running Retrospect Mac 14.6 as you were in your previous post.  For Retrospect Mac/Windows 15, there is a Knowledge Base article describing its new Proactive AI feature.  In the "Algorithm" section of that article, there is no indication that the decision tree algorithm considers what kind of power a laptop is on.  However in the "Wake-on-LAN" section of that article, it is implied that Wake-on-LAN can actually be made to work for Proactive scripts—whereas Wake-on-LAN hasn't worked for Backup scripts since it was supposedly introduced in Retrospect Mac 8 (the Retrospect Windows User's Guides have even long had a note saying that this is true for Mac clients).  You might want to consider activating WAL (that's how the article abbreviates it) for your laptop clients; that way the backups at least wouldn't fail.

Note that the cumulative Release Notes say (#4529 and #4710) two legacy settings were removed from Proactive Backup options in the Retrospect Mac 11.5 Console.  However those options are still described on pages 111-112 of the Retrospect Mac 15 UG, even though my testing just now shows that they are in fact absent from the Console in Retrospect Mac 14.6.  I think Retrospect Mac 12 initiated the policy of describing new features in the "What's New" chapter of the UG, and then over-writing those descriptions in the next version of the UG instead of moving them to other chapters.  For that policy we must thank the august Documentation Committee at Retrospect Inc. .

Now might be a good time to request this new feature, considering that the "What's New" chapter of the Retrospect Mac 15.0 UG promises additional features in later "point releases".   Here's why and how to submit a new feature request Support Case.