richpasco Posted September 27, 2008 Report Share Posted September 27, 2008 (edited) A few days ago I backed up my Windows 2000 system with Retrospect Express HD 2.0.214. It prompted me to update to 2.5.113, which I did (when my backup was complete). Now when I try to restore anything from that backup, Retrospect crashes. I clicked on the "Restore" button on the main screen shown in Fig. 1, and after a few seconds got the error message shown in Fig. 2. How can I restore my files backed up with 2.0.214? Edited September 27, 2008 by Guest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted September 27, 2008 Report Share Posted September 27, 2008 Try to uninstall and Reinstall 2.5. Try to delete or rename the Retroexpress folder in all users\application data after exiting Express HD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richpasco Posted September 28, 2008 Author Report Share Posted September 28, 2008 I did as you suggested: I uninstalled Retrospect Express HD via Control Panel / Add/Remove Programs, and then I deleted folder C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\RetroExp and all its contents. I then reinstalled Retrospect Express HD 2.5.113 and uninstalled MozyHome 1.8.9.3 as described here. Finally I launched Retrospect and clicked on Restore and I get the same assertion failure as noted above. Now what? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted September 28, 2008 Report Share Posted September 28, 2008 You might have a damaged catalog file. Delete the .rbc file on the backup disk and Retrospect will rebuild it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richpasco Posted September 28, 2008 Author Report Share Posted September 28, 2008 I am rebuilding the catalog file as I write.... In the mean time, can you tell me exactly what the assertion at "tstring.cpp-2214" asserts? One would need to look at the source code to know. Usually programmers use assertions to test for their own programming errors, but they code more helpful error messages to report issues with the external environment (e.g. corrupt or missing files). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richpasco Posted September 29, 2008 Author Report Share Posted September 29, 2008 Robin Mayoff wrote: You might have a damaged catalog file. Delete the .rbc file on the backup disk and Retrospect will rebuild it. So, I deleted "\Retrospect Restore Points\RestorePoint2.rbc" (1 Gigabyte) from my backup drive and re-started Retrospect Express HD 2.5.113. It showed a status message about doing backup system maintenance, all day, as the number of restore points gradually grew from 0, 1, 2, ... up to the 13 it had when I started. And then I clicked on Restore ... and got the very same assertion failure as in my first post in this thread. I really would like to restore files from my prior backup done with 2.0.214. Should I uninstall 2.5.113 and reinstall 2.0.214? Perhaps 2.5 is not yet ready for prime time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richpasco Posted September 29, 2008 Author Report Share Posted September 29, 2008 By the way, when I clicked on "Yes" to "Send the error report?" there was no obvious evidence that the report was in fact sent. Did you (EMC) get it? Did you look at it? What does it tell you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted September 29, 2008 Report Share Posted September 29, 2008 You may want to download a trial to Retrospect 7.6 and see if it works better for you. Express HD has very limited error code details. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richpasco Posted September 29, 2008 Author Report Share Posted September 29, 2008 You may want to download a trial to Retrospect 7.6 and see if it works better for you. Express HD has very limited error code details. This thread is not going in the direction I want. I paid cash money for a license for Retrospect Express HD 2.0 (having received 1.0 bundled with a hard disk purchase). All I want is for the software I already paid for to work as advertised, specifically to restore the files I already backed up with it! I am unhappy that it doesn't, and even more unhappy that your solution is to tell me to try yet another EMC product (which, if it works, will cost me even more money for a new license). At this point, I'm so frustrated that I would switch vendors before I bought another EMC product. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted September 29, 2008 Report Share Posted September 29, 2008 Your backup may be corrupted or contain corruption. My suggestion is just that, a suggestion. I want to help you narrow down a possible cause for the error. This is not always an easy problem to resolve in a forum environment, and calling directly to tech support may be the best option. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richpasco Posted September 29, 2008 Author Report Share Posted September 29, 2008 directly to tech support may be the best option Could you please post the phone number? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted September 29, 2008 Report Share Posted September 29, 2008 http://www.emcinsignia.com/contactsupport Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richpasco Posted September 29, 2008 Author Report Share Posted September 29, 2008 http://www.emcinsignia.com/contactsupport That page says, "Technical Support is available to customers covered by a current support agreement or who pay for support incidents." Does a paid license for Retrospect Express HD 2.0 comprise a current support agreement? If not, does this mean that I will need to fork over additional money in order to get the software I already paid for to work properly? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted September 30, 2008 Report Share Posted September 30, 2008 I did some research and this error happens due to a bug in Retrospect when the operation generates a large number of errors in the log. if you do a restore to a new folder, do you see the same crash? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richpasco Posted September 30, 2008 Author Report Share Posted September 30, 2008 ... if you do a restore to a new folder, do you see the same crash? I don't know how to do that, because the crash happens as soon as I click the "Restore" button, which is before it would ask me the question about original location or new folder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted September 30, 2008 Report Share Posted September 30, 2008 Are you able to do a backup or does that crash too? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richpasco Posted September 30, 2008 Author Report Share Posted September 30, 2008 Are you able to do a backup or does that crash too? I am able to do a backup. It's when I click "Restore" that it crashes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted September 30, 2008 Report Share Posted September 30, 2008 please send me the operations_log.utx and assert_log.utx file to emcinsignia_forums@emc.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richpasco Posted September 30, 2008 Author Report Share Posted September 30, 2008 I have sent the log files per your request. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted September 30, 2008 Report Share Posted September 30, 2008 I am able to do a backup. Strange, the log doesn't seem to show a backup attempt for some reason. During the catalog rebuild I see some page file errors. How much free space do you have on the C: disk? How much physical RAM do you have? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted September 30, 2008 Report Share Posted September 30, 2008 You may want to try clearing out your temp directories based on the page file error in the log. Retrospect checks for the existence of environment variables in the following order and uses the first path found: 1. The path specified by the TMP environment variable. 2. The path specified by the TEMP environment variable. 3. The path specified by the USERPROFILE environment variable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richpasco Posted September 30, 2008 Author Report Share Posted September 30, 2008 Strange, the log doesn't seem to show a backup attempt for some reason. Here's the reason: When you asked me to try doing a new backup, I didn't want to risk ruining my older, probably good backup by doing a bad one on top of it. So I renamed my ...All Users\Application Data\RetroExp folder and created my new backup on a different drive. Then (after it worked) I disconnected that different drive and restored things as they were. How much free space do you have on the C: disk? It has 50 GB free of 160 GB total. How much physical RAM do you have? 512 MB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richpasco Posted September 30, 2008 Author Report Share Posted September 30, 2008 ... try clearing out your temp directories.... Both environment variables TMP and TEMP point to the same folder, specifically C:\Documents and Settings\pasco\Local Settings\Temp I removed everything from that directory (including all its subdirectories), restarted Retrospect Express HD 2.5.113, and clicked on Restore. After a few seconds I got the same Assertion Failure as shown above. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted September 30, 2008 Report Share Posted September 30, 2008 What you are seeing is a bug in the software we are going to try and fix as quick as possible, but I do not know when a bug fix release will be made available. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkinCroton30 Posted October 3, 2008 Report Share Posted October 3, 2008 Robin - Is there a time line for this bug fix? I have been with Express HD for years but if I cant do a restore then the program is worthless. I am on the cusp of buying a drive image package like Shadow Protect Desktop 3.2 Any thoughts? Anything to keep me here? Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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