rbf Posted January 7, 2007 Report Share Posted January 7, 2007 I have been using Retropect 5.x under Mac OS X (currently 10.4.8) on an iMac for several years to backup selected subvolumes to the internal CD drive with no problems. In 11/2004 I bought 6.0 but didn't install it until a couple of months ago. After installing, I updated it to 6.1.126 with driver update 6.1.9.102. I then did 4 new backups with new unformatted CDs and all were successful with no errors. I'll call those full backups. The catalogs are in the Retrospect application folder. However, when I tried to do the next backup with the same backup sets (I'll call that an incremental), I got the message: Catalog out of sync with backup set "xxxxx" Select Tools>Repair>Update Existing from the Directory I followed those instructions and after the re-build, I clicked IMMEDIATE and the backup went normally. In one case I deleted the backup set, created a new one with the same name, erased the CDs, did a successful full backup, and the subsequent backup again gave the "sync" error. This happens every time I do an incremental with the backup sets that I previously mentioned. I.e., every time I do an incremental, I get the "sync" error and I have to do a rebuild and then the backup. This never happened with Retrospect 5.x. What can I do to eliminate this problem? Thanks, Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twickland Posted January 8, 2007 Report Share Posted January 8, 2007 "Catalog out of sync" errors occur when Retrospect doesn't write file data from the last backup session(s) to the catalog. This should happen only when a backup fails to complete normally for some reason (crash, hang, power failure, etc.). What do your logs say? For each subvolume, you should see a time stamp for copying, comparing, and an execution statement. After the last subvolume is backed up, you should also see a summary execution statement for the backup script, followed by a "quit" or "shutdown" message if you've so configured Retrospect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbf Posted January 8, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 8, 2007 The error is mine. I was inattentive and not only misread the logs but did not read them carefully. The logs showed subsequent failures were caused by the initial backups stopping on an error while writing to the CDs. The errors have been fixed and all backups are now working correctly. I apologize for not being more thorough in my error analysis and for wasting your time reading my post. Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbf Posted January 9, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 9, 2007 I now have a different problem. As noted above I can now successfully do incremental backups. After all that previous trouble, I thought I better try a restore. When it called for the appropriate CD and I inserted the CD, it displayed the message "content unrecognized". So then I restarted Retrospect and tried Verify under Tools. That also gave me "content unrecognized". I tried Verify for 2 of the other backups mentioned in my first post. Same result - "content unrecognized". To help eliminate the possibility of bad CDs, I used Disk Utility to erase the CDs in one backup set, and then copied some folders (by dragging from finder) to each CD and then used BURN DISC. Both CDs after burning could be read. That appeared to show that the CDs (which are new) are good. I then erased both CDs, and did a full backup of one of my subvolumes. The backup finished successfully and there were no error messages in the log. I then restarted Retrospect and did an incremental which was successful with no errors in the log. I then tried a Restore and got the "content unrecognized" condition previously mentioned. A Verify also has the same problem. Unless someone can suggest a solution, it appears that I will have to go back to version 5. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted January 9, 2007 Report Share Posted January 9, 2007 I suggest you provide readers with the make, model and driver of the optical device being used, as reported by Retrospect's Configure->Devices window. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbf Posted January 9, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 9, 2007 Here is the device status requested: Retrospect: Directory>Devices>Device Status ID Vendor Product Version Driver ATAPI-A:0:0 Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-104 A227 Pioneer DVD/CD-RW (5.12) Retrospect: 6.1.126 with Driver Update 6.1.9.102 I have always written to type RW CDs. iMac (bought new Oct 2002): PowerMac G4, 512MB, 800MHz, Mac OS X 10.4.8 Thanks, Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted January 9, 2007 Report Share Posted January 9, 2007 According to the EMCInsignia device support database, this drive is not supported for use with CD-RW media: http://www.emcinsignia.com/supportupdates/technical/retrospect/detail/?id=9046 I uderstand that it was working for you with 5.1; but it was unsupported then, too. Get yourself some nice CD+R blanks; your backups will probably go faster, too. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbf Posted January 10, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 I tried a backup using CD-Rs but I could not restore or verify those. After inserting the CD, the message displayed is "unknown status". I was rather surprised to hear that CD-RW is not supported as I have been using them for several years with 5.x and have restored with no problem. Something changed with v6. Today I read Chapter 3: Hardware in the User's Guide. P33-34 tells how to "configure" a drive for writing. I used this procedure to configure with a CD-RW. It took 20-30 minutes to find a write method that worked (documented in the log). I then erased the CDs in a backup set and did a full backup, and then tried a verify and restore which this time worked. The manual states that the configuration process for unsupported media may not work. So far it does work, but it is possible I guess that it may fail in the future. Dave, thanks very much for your help. Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhwalker Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 You might want to monitor the RDUs as they come out. At some point your drive may become supported. When that happens, remove the .rdi configuration file that was generated by your custom config so that it doesn't override the more complete parameters in the updated RDU. Russ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbf Posted January 10, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 Thanks, Russ, for the reminder about monitoring the RDUs. Retrospect could remind me about reviewing custom configured .rdi files when a new RDU is installed, but I'll bet it doesn't. I only configured the drive for CD-RW. I assume, but have not verified, that I must do that also for CD-R, but I rarely use CD-R. It would be interesting to know why Retrospect would successfully create a backup that it would not be able to verify or restore. It is probably using its own low level I/O routines to read and write instead of the Mac's. Perhaps by writing and reading a track or two of data before doing the backup, it could determine if it was configured correctly. Thanks again to everyone for your help. Bob (from central PA) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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