Unexpected behavior after modifying proactive script in Retro 10

[twickland]

I just stumbled on a new feature of Retro 10: When modifying a script, Retrospect now asks in a popup window whether to save or revert the changes. While in principle this new feature should be a real improvement, it unfortunately seems to be a bit random in its operation. Sometimes this popup window appears immediately after clicking on another window or location. At other times, one has to click on View> Refresh before the popup appears.

 

Disconcertingly, the entered modifications appear in the script's summary window whether or not the popup window has appeared or the changes have been saved. It can therefore be hard to tell if or when the changes have been accepted. Furthermore, clicking on "Save" doesn't always result in the changes being communicated to the engine, at least in the case of a proactive script. (I haven't yet experimented with regular backup scripts.)

 

Here's an example: Yesterday I modified a proactive script by unchecking the "Disable all schedules" box. The icon in the scripts window changed from an exclamation point to a green clock. Based on the previous behavior in Retro 9, I assumed this meant that the script was now active. After an hour or two, I noticed that the sources were not backing up as expected, so I went to the Activities> Proactive window and noticed in this window that the sources associated with this script still displayed the "inactive" symbol. I went back to the script window and everything looked OK. I then went to the log window to see if anything unusual was listed. When I clicked on View> Refresh to refresh the log, that's when the popup window referring to the modified script appeared, and I first became aware that it even existed. Unfortunately, clicking on "Save" still didn't cause the script to become active. I had to recheck the "Disable all schedules" box, save the modification, uncheck the box, and then save this latest modification before the script eventually became active.

 

This morning, I experimented further. Another proactive backup script had its schedules disabled, I unchecked the box and saved the changes. As I expected, the script did not become active at this point because the schedule called for it to become active at noon and it was only 11:00 AM. I dialed the active starting time back to 10:00 AM and clicked "save." The script still did not become active. I then did the enable/disable dance I had performed the day before, and the script became active. I allowed the script to back up a couple of sources; then checked "Disable all schedules" and saved the changes. The script, however, remained active in the Activities window and continued to back up sources. I changed the active start time to a point in the future and saved the changes. The script still remained active even though there were now two conditions that should have made it inactive.

 

I let the script run through lunchtime to see if it would stop on its own. After lunch, I tried toggling between enabling and disabling the script schedule, to no avail. I was finally able to get the script to become inactive after I dialed the active end time back before the present.

[Don Lee]

I would add that I have also seen a script - just today - be created with a single source and single destination (a restore script, replacing "whole volume) that I set up to restore a volume from a tape set.

 

I saved it of course.

 

While that script ran, I did other things, and later noticed that the script no longer had a source listed in the summary window!

 

Later, when the script completed, the source re-appeared.

 

Smells like this is related to another incident: Media set "invisible" while restore is active

[bdunagan]

Sorry to hear that the new Save/Revert feature for Scripts is appearing a bit random. The popup should appear immediately when you attempt to move to another script or view. As both you and iCompute have seen, the "Disable all schedules" checkbox is the odd man out in the Save/Revert workflow. We'll be improving the UI for that soon.

 

However, we've been unable to reproduce the specific issues you saw. Let us know any additional information if you (or anyone else) is continuing to see problems like this, so that we can make sure this feature works as intended for everyone.

[twickland]

Not sure if this may be related:

 

We have two proactive backup scripts. One script (named "Extended Backup") is currently set to disable all schedules; the other (named "Laptop Backup") is set to be active between noon and 2:30 PM M-F.

 

Yesterday morning I performed an OS update through Software Update that required a reboot. All seemed to go well, and Retro Engine automatically started as expected. However, later in the afternoon, past 2:30 PM, I noticed that nothing had been backed up by Laptop Backup, which was unusual. I went to Activities> Proactive and found that the window was completely blank. When I went to the Scripts window, the symbol next to "Laptop Backup" was green, indicating that the script should have been active during its scheduled window.

 

I then went to the second proactive script "Extended Backup" and unchecked the "Disable all schedules" box. Script "Extended Backup" is set to be active from noon until 6:00 PM whenever the schedule is enabled. After re-enabling the schedule for this script, the Activities> Proactive then properly populated with the sources for both proactive scripts, and the script "Extended Backup" began connecting with sources and backing them up, as it should have.

 

The post I made above was in regard to Retro 10.0.0; this post is in regard to Retro 10.1.0 (221). (Unfortunately, the signature box always shows whatever is the current information and not what was correct at the time of the post.)