Cannot "move" disk media set

[Don Lee]

I don't see anything in the forum about this, but it appears to me to be a serious bug.

I cannot seem to "move" a disk media set.

I have - many times in the past - moved a disk media set from one disk to another. Manually changing the path name in the "member" and/or rebuilding the catalog would restore the "moved" set to be usable.

In Retro 14.6.1 (mac) _and_ Retro 12.6.1 (Windows) I am having the same problem. If the files of a disk media set are copied from one disk to another, it is not possible to "restore" it to health. It seems quite impossible. I've tried several permutations of repair, rebuild, manual manipulation of the path(s), and even removing the catalog before rebuild. The best I can do is get it to show "green" in the console and then when I try to use it, the execution gets stuck on "waiting for media". If I try to "find" the media (member(s)), it either ignores me (Mac) or fails with an error (Windows).

Has anyone else seen this? I'm guessing it is a new bug in a recent upgrade, because this used to work.

No, I have not tried to re-install an old version to see if that would work.

 

[Don Lee]

Page 15 in the Mac v13 documentation says: (under "what's new")

Portable Backup Sets/Media Sets

Retrospect v11 for Windows and Retrospect v13 for Mac now allow customers to move

the member folders of disk sets to new locations and let Retrospect know by simply

editing the members and picking the new location. There are scenarios where moving

these files is preferable to a set transfer.

 

Oops.

[DavidHertzberg]

Likewise oops; I missed that wiped-out capability in this post, to which I've now added a mention of it.  Do you get the feeling, Don Lee, that the two of us should maybe be watching out for an information-suppression hit squad from Walnut Creek?

Edited January 15, 2019 by DavidHertzberg
Now that I can do it, replaced "insert appropriate smiley here" with actual smiley

[bradp015]

On 1/30/2018 at 5:26 PM, Don Lee said:

Page 15 in the Mac v13 documentation says: (under "what's new")

Portable Backup Sets/Media Sets

Retrospect v11 for Windows and Retrospect v13 for Mac now allow customers to move

the member folders of disk sets to new locations and let Retrospect know by simply

editing the members and picking the new location. There are scenarios where moving

these files is preferable to a set transfer.

 

Oops.

Don, you might find my issues interesting. i did a move of my media set to a new drive with version 9. David and Lennart were very helpful. Unfortunately further issues still exist. 

 

[bradp015]

Well, Im still having some issues here....using ret 15 mac now.

1. I tried moving the media set back to a single drive from a raid drive. In the copy media set task the raid drive unmounted for no reason and ret thru the error "cant find volume"

 Iv done this 2 times. Both time the raid will just unmount in the middle of the task. 

Because of the unexpected unmounting and not knowing if its the raid drive or ret. doing this, I decided to put back the media set to the single drive, which now i trust more. 

2. Now in selecting the path of the media set, NOTHING is in the "retrospect" folder. Its as it is empty. In the finder I see the correct path for the set. But not in retrospect.

Don Lee, have you solved the moving media set yet??

I have emailed support and now have a ticket, but it took long enough for support to get back to me, that i am on to a bunch of diff issues than my original issue. 

[DavidHertzberg]

bradp015,

First, on "4T HD" does your single (I hope) Retrospect folder contain a 0-byte "Backup Media" document?  Based on my hypothesis that Retrospect expects to see that document there as a marker,  you'd better have one there.  Please attach a Finder dialog for "4T HD" showing us what is in your Retrospect folder all the way down.

Second, perhaps to attract the attention of Don Lee, you have resurrected an old thread as an alternative to this recent one.  I find it confusing bouncing back and fourth between the two threads—unless you don't want me to post in this thread.

[Lennart_T]

2 hours ago, bradp015 said:

Because of the unexpected unmounting and not knowing if its the raid drive or ret. doing this

What happens if you copy the .rdb files in the Finder instead of using Retrospect? (Just as a test to see if the raid drive unmounts.)

[bradp015]

Lennart

After having the unmounting issue i got a little un-nerved and did a finder copy just to have the bu set on the single 4T drive. The raid drive did NOT unmount. That gives me some confidence that its not the raid drive that is buggy or going south. So the unmounting only happened on the "media set copy" task. I think it was about 4 hours into the copy that it unmounted. Not sure if was the same length of time on the 2 times I tried the "copy media set" in ret. 

David,

Yes it does have that... just to inform you, i dumped the "copy media set" files we did last time. I didnt want to have any space issue (and not that it should been an issue as we discussed) to get my set (currently the only one) copied to back to the single drive from the raid. (a bit of panic on the unmounting problem i had). 

thank you

b

[bradp015]

1 hour ago, DavidHertzberg said:

bradp015,

First, on "4T HD" does your single (I hope) Retrospect folder contain a 0-byte "Backup Media" document?  Based on my hypothesis that Retrospect expects to see that document there as a marker,  you'd better have one there.  Please attach a Finder dialog for "4T HD" showing us what is in your Retrospect folder all the way down.

Second, perhaps to attract the attention of Don Lee, you have resurrected an old thread as an alternative to this recent one.  I find it confusing bouncing back and fourth between the two threads—unless you don't want me to post in this thread.

I was seeing if Don had solved the issue. Reason for posting here. Id be happier to continue with the other newer thread i started. Yes, confusing is correct! Thanks for posting the link of the proper thread..... we should use that one since all my whoa's are there. 

[DavidHertzberg]

bradp015,

Here's a question whose answer I may have missed, suggested by the fact that "the raid drive unmounted for no reason" twice at the same point in the Copy Media Set: 

Before you did the Copy Media Set onto the destination SFA 3, when you Added SFA 3 as a Media Set and defined 1-SFA 3 as its first and only Member on "4T HD", did you make sure 1-SFA 3 had more than 1.4 TB as its capacity?  That capacity depends on what percentage of the available space it is allowed to use, and Retrospect's default percentage tends to be too low.  Since you're running Retrospect Mac 15.6.1.105, you can change the percentage or the maximum capacity by going back to Media Set SFA 3 and using the "pencil" in the Member tab.  Then repeat the Copy Media Set from the beginning.

If that isn't applicable or doesn't work, here's why and how to file a bug Support Case.

[bradp015]

David, 

I do not know if the unmount event happened at the same point in the copy media set.

Two items on your comments.

Yes, i did set the space on the destination 4T to be large enough to hold the media set.

When i returned to that very same page to check that i had set enough space i was surprised to see numbers had changed to be very low... Like 146Gb/ 46%. 

When I change them back to 3750/99% and left the page, on returning later the numbers had changed again. I thot this bizarre and stated it in my posts. 

So as it stands now there's 2 things that are not acting as you would expect.

1. when choosing a member there's nothing under the existing retrospect folder shown in the select dialog. Although the 1-SFA 3 member is indeed seen in the finder directory. And when I did this the very first time (retro 9) to move the set to raid, I DID SEE THE WHOLE DIRECTORY in retrospect. NOW i do not!

2. When setting the member space, the numbers will change when you visit the dialog again. Im not sure how much, when and which members change. (raid and/or 4T). It seems random. Although after checking the raid set many times I recall it sticking at 99%. Ill need to check that again. 

thanks

[DavidHertzberg]

bradp015,

Concerning your post directly above, which I am not quoting because of length:

1. I sounds as if either Copy Media Set works differently in Retrospect Mac 15 from Retrospect Mac 9, or else it keeps the whole directory when the copy is to a RAID disk.  Did you in fact do the copying to RAID using Copy Media Set?  I'm a bit confused because of your changing of Media Set names and destinations.

2. It sounds as the changing of the capacity numbers on "4T HD", as opposed to on the RAID drive,  is a Retrospect bug—although I'm not sure what else is on "4T HD" because your last-posted screen shot isn't all the way up unless you've changed the name of your stand-alone drive .  Don't forget to include the changing of the capacity numbers in your Support Case.

[bradp015]

David,

1. Sorry to confuse. the original 'copy from 4T to raid' was done in finder. In ret the member in SFA 3 media set was changed from 4T to raid. Everything worked fine. Lenart posted that idea. 

And since then my journey has brought me thru many roads with the goal of using 4T as a safe. Eventually using 'copy backup' per your suggestion. 

Having a bit of 'panic' happen on the journey im now in this state. raid=regular media set (SFA 3) and backups going fine. 4T= a 'finder' copy of the media set SFA 3.  

2. Before i did have my original media set SFA 3 still on 4T. And was 'leaving it there' cause i did not trust the raid yet. The last items we tried, was to do 'copy media set' from raid to 4T. That task failed. You asked, did i have enough space. We figured yes i did have enough space. But i thot maybe it needs the full 4TB's (i have the raid set to use all space). So i dumped my original set and cleared the drive. I did 'copy media set again. Thats when raid unmounted. Re-try then same=unmounted.  After that i had panic about the raid. Unmounting can lead to corruption. So i did 'finder copy' to 4T. 

The changing number in ret 'use this much space' i had noticed a long the way. I would change it to 99% and the next time i checked it would be different. I even see 146GB/99%. Which obviously is not right. 

I honestly didnt think this would drag on so long, so i didnt start a trouble shoot log of events. I prob. should have. But I do our thread here. 

thank you for all your help.... its incredibly useful. 

b

[DavidHertzberg]

bradp015,

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that both (?) failed attempts to Copy Media Set were done with "4T HD" as the destination, but that a Finder copy of the full  "1- ...'  folder to "4T HD" worked OK.

If that's true, then possibly you have uncovered a bug in Retrospect Mac 15 that no one else has discovered.  If so I urge you to quickly submit a Support Case, because if you upgraded to version 15 within 30 days of the problem you will be entitled to personalized help from Tech Support.

[bradp015]

5 hours ago, DavidHertzberg said:

bradp015,

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that both (?) failed attempts to Copy Media Set were done with "4T HD" as the destination, but that a Finder copy of the full  "1- ...'  folder to "4T HD" worked OK.

If that's true, then possibly you have uncovered a bug in Retrospect Mac 15 that no one else has discovered.  If so I urge you to quickly submit a Support Case, because if you upgraded to version 15 within 30 days of the problem you will be entitled to personalized help from Tech Support.

You are correct about finder copy worked fine. 

I did submit a ticket and am corresponding with support. I have to say, because of the time lapse in corresponding, lots happens between comments. its been difficult to convey everything to them.  

Q: Whats your take on using Mac "disk utility's first aid" on a raid enclosure with 2 4TB drives in mirrored mode. 

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MED3FR7T08.0/

Because disk first aid would see 1 drive. How does that work within the raid enclosure? Can one drive need fixing and the other not needing fixing? If disk first aid fixes an error, how does that translate to 2 identical drives? This raid doesnt have a external controller or software controller, its all inside the enclosure. So there's no way to address the 2 drives separately. Macsales said i shouldnt have to use disk utility because if one drive fails the led will light RED. They didnt say it would hurt the drive (corruption etc. ) No other comments about using DU first aid.

You can see im not a raid expert by any means....

By "personalized help" you mean "no charge" for 30 days?

Thank you David

[DavidHertzberg]

bradp015,

Never having had a RAID, I don't know anything about them except what I looked up this evening on Wikipedia.  As for Disk Utility First Aid, I would suggest phoning Apple Support at (800) 275-2273 between 9 a.m. and 11 p.m. Eastern Time any day of the week.

I don't understand why you are currently worried about your RAID device.  I thought everything was working fine there, including Finder copies and Retrospect backups.

[bradp015]

17 hours ago, DavidHertzberg said:

bradp015,

Never having had a RAID, I don't know anything about them except what I looked up this evening on Wikipedia.  As for Disk Utility First Aid, I would suggest phoning Apple Support at (800) 275-2273 between 9a.m. and 11 p.m. Eastern Time any day of the week.

I don't understand why you are currently worried about your RAID device.  I thought everything was working fine there, including Finder copies and Retrospect backups.

I realize iv posted this in another thread....

I was worried about the raid due to the unmounting.... Im under impression that unexpected unmounting can create data corruption. Yes, it was in the "read" in not "write" task (having data copied "from" the raid while it unmounted) but im not an expert in this area therefor extremely cautious here.

[Nigel Smith]

On 1/17/2019 at 12:56 AM, bradp015 said:

Q: Whats your take on using Mac "disk utility's first aid" on a raid enclosure with 2 4TB drives in mirrored mode. 

It all depends on what the problem is. If it was introduced at the file system level, e.g. a disconnect while writing data, then fine. The problem will be with the volume presented to Disk Utility and will (since this is a hardware RAID) be present on both drives. Fix the volume, fix the problem.

If it's a disk problem then no, don't go there! One disk should be showing as "failed" -- simply pop, replace, rebuild RAID.

Perhaps worth noting that RAID =/= backup -- it will protect (somewhat) against hardware failure, but not e.g. data corruption.

And personally, I wouldn't trust *any* volume, RAID or not, that "unexpectedly" unmounted. Get that sorted before continuing!

[bradp015]

9 hours ago, Nigel Smith said:

It all depends on what the problem is. If it was introduced at the file system level, e.g. a disconnect while writing data, then fine. The problem will be with the volume presented to Disk Utility and will (since this is a hardware RAID) be present on both drives. Fix the volume, fix the problem.

If it's a disk problem then no, don't go there! One disk should be showing as "failed" -- simply pop, replace, rebuild RAID.

Perhaps worth noting that RAID =/= backup -- it will protect (somewhat) against hardware failure, but not e.g. data corruption.

And personally, I wouldn't trust *any* volume, RAID or not, that "unexpectedly" unmounted. Get that sorted before continuing!

Nigel, 

Thank you for your help!

So this raid only unmounted on its own when Ret was copying a media set from it (reading). Never has it unmounted otherwise. That makes me think its a poss. issue with ret. Maybe ret paused long enough for the raid to self sleep? Really not sure what happened. But i know it happened 2 times. When I checked "match" and "dont dupe file" for the script and re ran it (third time BUT I did a "cat rebuild" first as tech support recommended). I did not do a cat rebuild before the other 2 times.  ret finished up and i now have a dupe of the media set on another drive (single internal drive). This new single drive is the same model drive as the raid's. (the other single drive was not). Not that is should matter though. 

Agreed on when to use DU. If 1 raid drive was to fail, showing the red light on the enclosure, Id complete the process per instructions to replace the bad with a good drive and let it do a hardware rebuild. 

I get what your saying about the "unexpect'd unmount". That does keep the concern in the back of my mind..... 😞

I did email macsales.com but havnt heard back from them. 

all the best!

brad p

[Nigel Smith]

On 1/30/2019 at 10:16 PM, bradp015 said:

Maybe ret paused long enough for the raid to self sleep?

The RAID itself shouldn't go to sleep. The disks will spin down, but the card itself should remain active and the volume should stay mounted on the Mac. Is it possible that the Mac itself went to sleep (if it happens again, check the OS logs for the sleep event)? I wouldn't set any backup server to auto-sleep, just to be sure (let the display sleep if one is attached, but not the computer) and would just do it manually if e.g. I had no backups to do over the weekend.

I'm all for energy saving, but not when it turns an important system into a flakey one! 🙂

If it's not set to sleep then you are down to normal troubleshooting. AFAIK (David? Lennart?) Retrospect accesses an external volume via OS calls rather than directly as it does with tape drives. So you can test with Finder copies of similar size or larger as the first step.