"Internal Consistency Check Failed" or "Catalog Out of Sync"--EPIDEMIC!!!

[aaroneous]

HELP!

 

Three companies I support have begun suffering similar Retrospect problems in the last three weeks. Retrospect will run for one night and then report and error (either "Internal Consistency Check Failed" or "Catalog Out of Sync") the next time it tries to run.

 

Here's what these environments have in common:

• Running Retro Workgroup 6.0.204 or later on OSX 10.3.9 client (tried this version and updates with no success).

• Running Retro client on at least one OSX 10.4.2 client (one office has all 10.4.2, other 2 offices have mixture of 10.4.2 and 10.3.9).

• Using FireWire backup drive(s) (different enclosures and drives at each location--160GB minimum).

• Had no problems with this setup for months at each location. Now all three locations are suffering.

 

Here's what I've tried:

• General computer maintenance (DiskWarrior, fsck, reset open firmware, permissions, etc.).

• Tools-->Repair. Catalog repair works for two customers and freezes for another.

• Delete and recreate backup set.

• Reformat firewire drives.

 

 

One of the Dantz people in this forum has blamed poor quality firewire drives for these types of problems. I just want to emphasize that this was never a problem before now. I have the same type of setup at other locations (mostly running OSX server) that are running fine. These drives are all different with different enclosures and brands of cables. I have three appointments Friday to fix this Retrospect problem--not simply a coincidence.

 

My only guesses are that Apple released a Software Update that has led to this problem or there is a client-side application running on the 10.4.2 machines in all 3 office that blows Retro up. Could either be the case?

 

Thanks for any help you can offer. Oh, and just for the record, I'm extremely disappointed with Dantz's technical support policies. They used to be accessible, helpful and free. These types of widespread issues should not cost me more money to resolve. It's already costing a bundle in labor and client relationships!

 

Regards,

Aaron

[natew]

Hi

 

Make sure you have Retrospect driver update 6.6 installed on all your machines.

 

The out of sync errors probably result because the assert error suddenly stops the backup. Please post the assert error you are seeing.

 

The issue with firewire ports is real however it only affects a few users with bad hardware on thier machines. As you stated it is unlikely that is the case here.

 

In a perfect world we would still do free support. We still do our best to post regularly on the support forums. The unfortunate reality is users pay for support one way or another. We don't want to raise the cost of the software and we certainly need to stay in business so our only option is to offer paid support. If the problem is caused by an unfixed bug in Retrospect we will happily refund your money.

 

Thanks

Nate

[aaroneous]

Thanks for your response, Nate.

 

Where will I find the assert error? I think it's quite possible that some of the machines have the latest client driver and some do not--I will check that next.

 

Thanks,

Aaron

[aaroneous]

I think I originally misunderstood your response, Nate.

 

Are you saying the "driver" needs to be updated on each client or the client software needs to be updated. It is my understanding that the driver's purpose is to allow the server to communicate with various backup media types and is unnecessary for the client.

 

If you *are* suggesting that the client software needs to be homogenous throughout the entire office, how can that work when some of the machines are running Tiger and require the Tiger version of Retro client while other machines are running Panther requiring the Panther client?

 

Thanks again,

Aaron

[CallMeDave]

The assert is displayed in the same dialog box that says "Internal Consistency Check Failed."

 

Retrospect will also write information to an assertion check log; look in /Library/Preferences/Retrospect/

 

The Operation Log will also list the error, and will give you information on _when_ in the backup process it happened. Is there anything common across the multiple sites in this regard?

 

- What model of Macintosh is showing the error?

 

The driver is just for the machine running the Retrospect application; the one that's giving the assertion check failure. Version 6.6.101 is current as of this time:

http://kb.dantz.com/display/2n/articleDirect/index.asp?aid=5233&r=0.8610803

 

Client software does not need to be the same, although it's not a bad idea. You can update clients through the application machine, pushing the changes over the network without client effort.

 

The .110 version is fine for 10.3 or 10.4; the only difference (that was necessary for Tiger) was in some file permissions; these permissions work in Panther as well as Tiger.