tdushane Posted June 13, 2006 Report Share Posted June 13, 2006 I am running Retrospect 6.5 Professional on a Windows 2000 machine with latest service packs. I have Client software on a Mac, and the program never fails to find the Mac and appropriately do incremental backups. The problem is with a PC on the network (my laptop) on which I backup a certain directory of files. Every so often, Retrospect cannot see the computer. At other times, it sees it, but when I try to log on within Retrospect, using proper passwords, etc., Retrospect says I don't have sufficient permissions. It says something like 'try to connect through Windows Explorer.' The only thing that reliably works is to restart both the server running Retrospect and my laptop, then go in the server's Windows Explorer, remap the drive on my laptop on that machine and then restart Retrospect. By the way, I am the Administrator on both machines and, fwiw, they both have the same password. This is *very* frustrating, as I cannot seem to find a way to be able to count on Retropsect to find my laptop, connect to it, and back it up, as it has been doing with the Mac for *several years* without this tedious manual procedure. Please help!! Ted Dushane - clueless in Ann Arbor, Michigan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tdushane Posted June 13, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 13, 2006 I neglected to say that the client laptop that intermittently can't be seen by the client is running Windows XP SP2 and that Mac that works 100% is running OS X 10.4.6. Ted Dushane Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nekr0phage Posted June 13, 2006 Report Share Posted June 13, 2006 Hi Ted, If you are using Windows Explorer to map your client pc to the backup computer then you are not using the client. Go to Configure>Clients>Add and connect to the computer via the Live Network. This will use the client and will not prompt you for Windows credentials, just the password you used to install the client on that computer. When you're selecting your sources for backup only use sources listed under the Backup Clients container and not the My Network Places container. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tdushane Posted June 15, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 15, 2006 Dear Foster, You are the best!! First, the practical details: I installed the client on the PC (I hadn't installed it before) and then set up my backup script to use the sources listed under the Backup Clients. I noticed, BTW, that when I add a volume or folder under the Backup Clients container, the name of the volume or folder appears with the name of the client computer in italics (in the Sources listing at the top of the summary of my script), rather than if you use the same folder or volume from the My Network Places container, in which case the name of the client computer is in a non-italic typeface. It works fine. Second, my speculation and/or question: I bet Dantz set up these clients, in large part, to avoid the very *annoying* quirkyness of M$ networking connections. In general, I find that the Macs on my network, when Microsoft networking is turned on, do a BETTER JOB of staying reliably on the network, with passwords working as they should, etc. etc., than the PC's DO!! Why is it that you can't just set up permissions for networking on a simple 6 machine network at home and have the cursed thing just work without needing all those reboots. I've asked the geekiest of command line experts how to fix this. They've tried NetBUI, using lmhosts file, etc., etc., and they remain stumped. The machines still intermittently can't "see" each other in or out of Retrospect. Any thoughts from you or others on this continually annoying "feature" of Windows, right up to XP. It sure would be nice if they'd get this one right. Sincerely, Ted Dushane Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ozbill99 Posted June 17, 2006 Report Share Posted June 17, 2006 I am running a peer to peer network of 6 systems plus a laptop, all running XP with auto IP addresses. We use Retro Vs 7. Occasionally a system might be re-booted and its IP address will change, Retro doesn't find it on the next scheduled backup and reports an Error 530 - client could not be found, so no backup was done. I have to go through the process of finding what the "new" IP address is then enter Retro Configure, Client, Properties to change the client IP address to the "new" one. Is there another logical address I can use to overcome this annoying problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tdushane Posted June 19, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 19, 2006 Bill, when I talked about the Macs working fine, and now the PCs more or less work fine, thanks to Foster's advice (get to the volumes on the PC's using the Backup Clients (and therefore Retrospect Client is installed on each machine) *rather* than using My Network Places (which depends on the ever-flaky Microsoft Networking). These statements are all in the context of fixed IP addresses for each machine, Mac and PC. I can't tell you if it will work if the IP's are variable. In particular, I wanted to avoid the frequent IP address changes that go with my using wireless connection to my laptop. I have it set so that when I connect the laptop via direct ethernet, it has the same IP address (obviously, I have to disable the wireless to do this) - Retrospect seems to like this, and doesn't think the laptop is a different computer wireless vs. ethernet. In addition, I still have noticed that, on occasion, the Retrospect Professional doesn't see my Windows XP SP2 laptop as a Retrospect Client. I go to Start:Programs:Administrative Tools:Services, manually stop the Retrospect Client (which is on the list of services) off and then restart it. When I do this, Retrospect on the server, without re-starting, immediately recognizes the laptop, and it works fine. I'd like to know why this is occurring, btw, and learn how to avoid this. It's an annoyance, since I have to check each evening that the server is finding the Retrospect Client on my laptop. Ted Dushane Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhwalker Posted June 19, 2006 Report Share Posted June 19, 2006 One solution to consider for the "changing IP" problem, if you have a DHCP server on your LAN, is to set it up for DHCP mapped by MAC address (static DHCP mapping) rather than from a dynamic pool. Many routers and firewalls offer this capability. That can also help some other things, such as providing unchanging forward/reverse DNS lookup on your LAN. This may not be an option for you, but I throw it out as a possibility. The other suggestion might be to toss the PCs and get more Macs (grin). russ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nekr0phage Posted June 20, 2006 Report Share Posted June 20, 2006 Hi Bill, You can add clients by the client hostname using multicast rather than adding by IP. This way Retrospect will not care when clients pull a new addy. In Configure>Clients forget the clients you have listed, then click Add. Make sure the Live Network window is displaying the Advanced settings, and under Access Method make sure Multicast is selected. Then highlight clients that need to be added from the list to the right, and click the Add button. This should prompt you for the password of that client, and will avoid having the client rely on an IP address to be located. Ted, Was your problem occuring on one of the wired/wireless machines? If you switch interfaces without restarting the computer (or at least the client service) then the client will likely be locked onto one interface. Unfortunately there is currently nothing that I am aware of to fix this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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