jabelli Posted October 28, 2008 Report Share Posted October 28, 2008 Killing the task is an extremely messy way to solve the problem, and could cause you other problems. If it's physically possible, log in at the console to see what Retrospect is doing. Otherwise, follow the document Mayoff posted above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rich2600 Posted October 29, 2008 Report Share Posted October 29, 2008 Thanks, For some reason i didn't catch that documentation, but i have to disagree that ending a process is not necessarily an 'extremely messy' way of solving the problem, it resets the program and starts fresh. Although this could be extremely critical during a backup procedure and would most likely to result in corruption of any backup documents made by Retrospect, my scheduled tasks do not run along the side of the backup system. I have checked my firewalls and the system itself to verify full port access which has been granted, which obviously didn't work for reasons mentioned above. So for safe operation scheduled around the actual times of the backups, I see no critical services, registry keys, database files, and flat end files being written too when the program is simply waiting. Therefore have found no conclusive reason to not use the batch file to resolve this temporary issue. Although taking the packets by the hand and guiding them through is a consideration, for this less than stable program, it's uncomfortable at best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markm75 Posted November 6, 2008 Report Share Posted November 6, 2008 I had this activity monitor working with 7.6 at one point under x64 vista.. I had to reinstall.. now it isnt working... IE: i'm getting the blank activity monitor.. scheduled backups dont run.. but they run the minute i open retrospect (go figure).. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted November 6, 2008 Report Share Posted November 6, 2008 Is Retrospect running under a specific RBU account or the currently logged in user? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markm75 Posted November 6, 2008 Report Share Posted November 6, 2008 I actually tried setting Retrospect service to run as the user it was logged in with, in the service settings.. it was set to local service, no effect though. I basically log in with this user account (workgroup).. set the schedule in retrospect, make sure the checkboxes are checked for the activity monitor.. then launch activity monitor.. but its blank.. nothing ever fires.. until i launch retrospect though.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheBradleyGroup Posted December 18, 2008 Report Share Posted December 18, 2008 This appears to be a common problem. Perhaps we are all missing something. I have tried running retrospect under different users, logging on with the same and different user Ids and just about every combination I can think of. I no situation can I get the monitor to show me anything and certainly I cant get it to shutdown retrospect, in fact when I ask it to, it launches another monitor window! SBS 2003 upto date patches Retrospect SBS premium 7.6 (still not sure if it will backup excahnge eoither!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnixGuru Posted December 24, 2008 Report Share Posted December 24, 2008 Has there been any word from Engineering on this issue? Has anyone found a work around? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poorman Posted January 2, 2009 Report Share Posted January 2, 2009 Has anyone found a work around? Robin's post on 11-6-2008 imples that the monitor works if Retrospect is run as the currently-logged-in user. Is anyone running it that way? If you are, does the activity monitor work for you? Also, is anyone seeing the failure on 32-bit Vista? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnixGuru Posted January 3, 2009 Report Share Posted January 3, 2009 (edited) I am running a Retrospect automated backup as the logged in user under Vista Home Premium which is a 32 bit version of Vista and the activity monitor is not working. Edited January 3, 2009 by Guest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnixGuru Posted January 5, 2009 Report Share Posted January 5, 2009 An interesting observation. I brought up the activity monitor when a backup wasn't running and got the same blank screen. When I clicked on the icon it started Retrospect with the Activity Screen. So it would appear as though this all works in Vista except when a backup is running. This would eliminate port issues, etc. and point at there being some sort of multi-threading issue/bug with the program itself during a running backup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnixGuru Posted January 6, 2009 Report Share Posted January 6, 2009 An update was automatically applied last night. It was "Driver Update and Hot Fix 7.6.2.101". I can't seem to find any documentation as to what is included/fixed in this patch. Does anyone have that info? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheBradleyGroup Posted January 6, 2009 Report Share Posted January 6, 2009 Hi everyone, Having successfully managed to sort out my Exchange server backup isuue, Note to self... READ THE MANUAL, I now find myself with the same problem with the activity monitor. SBS2003, 7.6 running under "Retrospect User" logged on as "Restrospect user" Activity monitor is blank. Just like evryone else! Eagerly awaiting an update from Retrospect Stuart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
preheim Posted January 23, 2009 Report Share Posted January 23, 2009 I have seen this issue on several machines. It is more of a problem with a 64 bit os, and is more of a problem with Vista, but I have seen it with 32 bit XP as well. The problem is that if you are NOT logged in, and retrospect launches, and can not complete for some reason - ie you need new media, etc. Then, when you login, the program just launches the monitor. If you restart and are FAST enough so that the next scheduled task does not start before you login, you can go into retrospect. But, if there is another scheduled backup then you launch the program after that has started as a service, you will get the same monitor again. You can end the tasks Retro in the task manager and launch Retrospect, or restart enough times until all of your schedule backups stop. Sometimes, I have seen this problem which requires you to reinstall the software. But, most of the time you can just end the tasks. But, this is a very annoying feature to 7.6. This is not happen in 7.5 It would be very nice Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wildboarcti Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 My situation is similar to others : Currently I have installed Retrospect SBS Standard 7.6.123 with latest drivers. After a scheduled backup launches the Retrospect program is unresponsive, the Activity Monitor is launched instead and is blank, and if you rename retrospectmonitor.exe to anything else launching Retrospect prompts that another user is running the application despite launching in the same account as confirmed by the content of the .utx file. This makes media change requirements virtually impossible to manage. Any fix yet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bok123 Posted February 12, 2009 Report Share Posted February 12, 2009 I too have the same problem with blank Activity Monitor. I'm using Retrospect v 7.6.123, Driver update 7.6.2.101, on single user VISTA Home Premium machine. To access Retrospect I have to restart computer and manually start program before it starts itself (in which case I get blank Activity Monitor). What is taking EMC2 so long to fix this problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poorman Posted February 12, 2009 Report Share Posted February 12, 2009 What is taking EMC2 so long to fix this problem? It is certainly disappointing that, after the initial quick back-and-forth, there has been no response from EMC on this thread in more than three months. I've been using Retrospect since before 1996, both personally at at companies. I often recommend it to others. The lack of response to such a significant defect makes me very hesitant to continue to recommend the product. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alturas Posted February 13, 2009 Report Share Posted February 13, 2009 Hello, I have the same problem plus the icon is not show in the toolbar when I close Retrospect. Windows is 2008 server 64 bit and retrospect is 7.6 with all the updates... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sbillard Posted February 14, 2009 Report Share Posted February 14, 2009 I'll add my name to the list of not working Retrospect Monitor sufferers. New Windows Vista 32 machine. Retrospect running as the currently logged in user. (The scheduled tasks did not work for me when I had retrospect running as a specific user as I did under Windows XP.) Sure would like to hear a solution for this. Seems like it has been a long time since the problem was first reported. Retrospect did not complete last night. Really don't know why since there was nothing visible. Probably was waiting on a client, but that is only a guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poorman Posted February 17, 2009 Report Share Posted February 17, 2009 I'm seeing the same behavior that vman reported. retromonitor.exe trys to make a TCP connection to localhost port 22024. Retrospect, however, is not listening on any port. The connection fails, and retromonitor retries every few seconds. This occurs regardless of whether Retrospect is started locally or in the backgound. Using the logged-in user or a specified user makes no change in the behavior. Another post reported that the port # was incrementing. I think this is a misunderstanding. Each connection attempt uses a new local port. This is normal behavior in TCP/IP. The remote port, however -- the one the Activity Monitor is trying to connect to -- is always 22024. Robin, you replied to the post about incrementing port numbers indicating that you'd pass that information along to engineering. I fear that may have them looking in the wrong place. From what I can see it seems likely that the issue is in the Retrospect code, not in the Process Monitor. -- Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
camkego Posted March 18, 2009 Report Share Posted March 18, 2009 I am also disapointed and suprised about the lack of response to this issue. This problem makes 7.6 highly unusable on vista x64. Where is the fix? Will 7.5.x be the last reliable Retrospect as EMC hires new engineers to flub it up? Cam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted March 19, 2009 Report Share Posted March 19, 2009 This is a very long thread with a lot of different experiences by users. If the activity monitor is loading instead of Retrospect.exe or just isn't displaying accurate info, then I would suggest users disable the activity monitor Application by either deleting it or renaming it from a .exe to a .old file. This will prevent the monitor from loading all together. The result will be that Retrospect 7.6 basically works like 7.5. Windows Vista doesn't like programs that run under a different user account then the currently logged in user. This is a Vista limitation. Until the Retrospect UI and Engine are separated and run independently (like 8.0 for Macintosh) on Windows, Retrospect will continue to encounter the Windows limitation. My suggestion is to manually launch Retrospect and leave the program minimizing and running in the background. You then don't need to worry about autolaunching, etc. If Retrospect is being used to back up a network of computers, you may want to use a Windows XP system as your backup computer so you don't encounter the Vista/Retrospect limitations. As far as the 64 bit support, you must use 7.6 because 7.5 does not support Vista 64 bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnixGuru Posted April 4, 2009 Report Share Posted April 4, 2009 I am running Retrospect under the same ID as I am logged in as and I have Admin rights. So I don't think Vista's issues with multiple ID's apply in my case. My second point is that Retrospect is a single instance program in that when you disable the activity monitor and launch Retropsect you get a dialog box that says another instance is running and click on 'OK' to kill it and start up Retrospect. Your solution only kills the current session and restarts the program. I need to gain entry into the currect session so I can address issues such needing additional media, etc. Currently, I am starting the program and letting it stay up and running so when the backups start I can see the media usage, but that is a work around and not a solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poorman Posted April 5, 2009 Report Share Posted April 5, 2009 (edited) Robin, thank you for replying to this thread. I see the situation differently than you do. The Activity Monitor is the user interface that Retrospect currently offers to view the staus of automated background backups. This UI may eventually be replaced by something better, but that isn't the issue at hand. What is being reported here (and elsewhere) is that an important feature of the product -- indeed, a key element of the core value proposition of automated backups -- isn't functional for many customers. I appreciate that Retrospect for Windows could be made even better by fully factoring it into UI and background service components. That is, however, undoubtably a large effort and therefore unlikely to be released soon. I also know that there are workarounds such as running Retrospect on Windows XP or always being logged in and leaving it running in the foreground, but all of these are significant inconveniences and really not acceptable. Customers who have purchased the current product deserve a patch that makes the core feature of automated backup function as intended. In addition, EMC would gain the additional sales that result from happy customers evangelizing the product. EMC should allocate resources from the product engineering team to diagnose and resolve this issue. It seems clear that the defect is in the Retrospect.exe process, which isn't listening for the attempts by the Activity Monitor to connect to it on TCP port 20224. I am willing to work with the engineering team on this issue if it will acelerate the resolution of this defect. -- Pete Edited April 5, 2009 by Guest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnixGuru Posted April 7, 2009 Report Share Posted April 7, 2009 Hi Pete, Thanks for your very articulate response. Very well said. I agree completely. Regards, Gary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alturas Posted April 20, 2009 Report Share Posted April 20, 2009 Having similar issue ... I agree. Matteo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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