Email backup reports not sent unless Retrospect is running?

[jhg]

I configured a daily email report to be sent at 7:00 AM, as shown in the attached screenshot.

However, it appears that the email is sent only if the full Retrospect application is open at the requested time.  I would have expected that the email would be generated by a small background process, such as retrorun.exe instead of the full app.

If this it is intended that the email status requires the full app to be running, then I would like to submit a feature request that the task of sending the status email be moved to retrorun so that the main app does not have to be running.

[DavidHertzberg]

jhg,

You probably know this, but here's how and why to submit a Support Case for a feature request.

However IMHO Retrospect Launcher—which you refer to by its ancient name of retrorun—is going to disappear from Retrospect Windows 17 (you're surely not really still running Retrospect Windows 7.5 as your Profile says?), as it did from Retrospect Mac 8.0 in 2009, in March or August 2020.  I've discussed that prediction starting with this post in another thread.  If I'm correct, there's no way your feature request will be implemented by Retrospect engineering.

Later on in that thread, Nigel Smith suggested using Windows Task Scheduler—for which a basic guide can be found in this Digital Citizen article.  Disclaimer: I'm a Retrospect Mac administrator, and I haven't used Windows since I chose to retire from my last job—where I was using Windows 95 for all but the last 5 months—in mid-2004.  So I don't know how you would schedule a kill of Retrospect.exe after it has sent the daily backup report, say at 7:05 a.m..  Maybe someone else on the Forums has a suggestion, or maybe you'll have to research that yourself.

 

[DavidHertzberg]

jhg,

Here's a SuperUser.com thread on how to kill a task at a scheduled time.  Disclaimer: My only experience administrating Retrospect Windows was a Windows 95 Client on a Mac 6.1 Engine from 2001-2004. 🤣  Here's another SuperUser.com thread on how to kill a task in general from a command script..

P.S.: As I said ending the second paragraph of this post in another thread, if my prediction is correct you'll be able to leave a GUI-less Retrospect.exe running constantly—mostly using virtual memory when not executing backup or restore tasks—so your daily e-mail report will be created at 7 a.m. with no effort.

P.P.S.: BTW e-mailing of the daily backup report was added to Retrospect Windows 12.5  (so you're not still running 7.5 😀) and to Retrospect Mac 14.5, but with absolutely no documentation.  Even this Knowledge Base article, updated in December 2019, uses screenshots from before the Preference was added.

Edited March 12, 2020 by DavidHertzberg
Paragraph 1 add 3rd sentence; P.S.: If I'm correct you'll be able to leave a GUI-less Retrospect.exe always running—your daily e-mail report will be created at 7 a.m. w/ no effort; P.P.S.:E-mailing of the daily backup report added w/ no documentation

[DavidHertzberg]

jhg and everyone else,

Two days ago I received, probably like all other Retrospect administrators,  a marketing e-mail from Retrospect "Inc.".  It announces a new version in March, and says "Not sure if your backups are running? Simply set up an always-on ProactiveAI script, and schedule email notifications to send you a daily summary [my emphases]."  IMHO that implies the new version will require having Retrospect.exe running when the summary is scheduled to be e-mailed.

In the third paragraph of this post in another thread I reported the head of Retrospect Tech Support's voice-overs.  Engineering's aimed at "eventually having Retrospect run as a service with an HTML-based interface".  That IMHO implies targeting in 2020 a "browser based" more-recently-introduced client-server backup application analyzed in the second features column of this Retrospect Knowledge Base article.  Itemized features include Windows/Linux support.

[Nigel Smith]

IMO, the RS engine will *have* to be running -- the report is *generated* and sent at the selected time. So you'll have to find a way to make RS run around the time you want the email to be sent (or change the time to when RS is running!), or go round RS somehow.

Maybe:

1. Use a spoof scheduled script to start RS at 6.59 and quit it on finish -- poll for definitely-not-there shares, a script with no clients but a 7.05 shutdown time might work, or take this chance to back up your server settings, catalogs, etc.
2. Use Windows scheduler to start RS at 6.59 and quit it after 7
3. Schedule your email to go after the last script of the day has finished, with shutdown after that -- you should know from experience how much leeway you need to build in so the script will finish before the mail gets sent
4. My favourite 🙂 -- send an email after every backup event, filter with your email client and post-process into your own database. You can get much more detail than the reports offer, find out many more "fun facts" eg weekly churn on a daily backed-up client, better alerting on failed/missing clients -- even build your own report "dashboard" to report the things *you* care about.
5. Generate your own emails from RS's log file (which appeals to the nerd in me, but is more pain for the same benefit as the last)

Unfortunately, while you can use Script Triggers to act on RS events, I know of few ways of *telling* RS to do something from the "outside" -- no "and now email the report" command. But I'm a few versions behind, so that may have changed. But you could use an "EndApp"  trigger to eg fire up a script to do no. 5 as the last act of the day.