Client no longer shows External Drives as available

[redleader]

My Retrospect Client suddenly refuses to give access to the External Drives

It says they are offline ... these drives are not*, the Mac OSX High Sierra system is fine using them for all other activities.

Server Was connecting to this client previously [6 days ago] 100% OK and backups from external drives worked fine.
Only now Retrospect Client? refuses to allow access now and reports them offline.
They are not*

☹

 OSX High Sierra Retrospect Client

OSX Catalina Retrospect Server

Latest version of Retrospect 16.5.x

[twickland]

I'm curious why you have installed the Retrospect server app on the client FS SERVER. I wonder whether this could be part of the problem; say, if the external volumes on that machine have been reserved for a local backup.

Should we assume that there's no problem that the local volumes JRP DATA and JRP DATA BU are shown as offline?

 

 

[redleader]

For the last many months this has worked perfectly.

Yes, both sites have the same version of Retrospect Server 16.5.1

What I call the CLIENT site also has Retrospect Client installed.

The SERVER Site backs up over Retrospect Remote Backup just one folder on the CLIENT site.

Like I say, this has worked perfectly until 6 days ago.

It is not an issue of whether a Server backs up a Server licensing as it has worked this way for months AOK.


 

JRP DATA and JRP DATA BU are removable drives that are stored offsite FYI 🙂

 

[DavidHertzberg]

redleader,

Have you read the "Catalina" sub-section under the "Technical  details" section in this Knowledge Base article?  Although it's termed a "folder"—which I think is sloppy editing by the engineer who copied the article for Mojave and updated it for Catalina, it sounds as if your external drives  must be given "Full Disk Access" in System Preferences->Security & Privacy->Privacy.  And the last sentence under "Version 16.5 Required" in this KB article requires Full Disk Access for "...  removable volumes and network volumes."

[Nigel Smith]

On 11/26/2019 at 4:14 PM, redleader said:

It says they are offline ... these drives are not*

It says they are offline to the Retrospect client of FS Server (which is different from offline to FS Server's OS).

As David says, check FS Server's Privacy settings and make sure Client has Full Disk Access. You could also get clever in the Terminal with "lsof" to see if any process is blocking access to those volumes, but I'd start with restart of FS Server to clear everything and turn to Terminal if the problem came back.

Are you actually using FS Server as a RS backup server? If not, stop the Retrospect Engine via its Preference pane -- the Engine *shouldn't* interfere with the Client's access to those volumes, but if you don't need it why take the chance?

[DavidHertzberg]

redleader and everyone,

To redleader's Windows Products—Retrospect -> Server, SBS and Multi Server Forum essentially-OP-only version of this thread, the head of Retrospect Tech Support posted a reply that reads in its entirety "If Retrospect is having trouble seeing Macintosh Client volumes, make sure you are running the 16.6 version and not 16.5.1."  Since there is as yet no release of a 16.6 Client, I assume that refers to the Retrospect for Mac 16.6.104 "backup server" download.

I saw this around 9 hours ago New York City time, but did not have time to phone Retrospect Tech Support until 5 minutes before their closing time this evening.  I'll phone again late tomorrow morning NYC time.  I'm still on 16.1, because I feared bugs in the 16.5 versions, but have no external drives.  Recently it has been extremely rare for anyone from Tech Support to post to these forums, so I'd take this as admission of a bug in the Mac 16.5 Engine.

P.S.: I phoned T.S. Tuesday 10 December (after phoning Sales because I mistakenly remembered  extension 2 instead of 3), but I couldn't get them to pick up the phone.  I sent an e-mail to support@retrospect.com asking if there's a 16.5 bug; they set up a Support Case.

P.P.S.: Tech Support replied Wednesday morning: "The fix for the client volumes not showing up with names longer than 27 characters was applied to the Retrospect engine v16.6.0.114, so suggestion from Robin followed to see if it fixes customers issue in this situation.  Retrospect client did remain unchanged with version 16.5.1.104."  From the screenshots I don't think the suggestion applies to redleader's problem—but the rest of you be warned if you have long volume names.  Rather IMHO the head of R. T. S. was harried as usual, felt impelled to respond with a suggestion, but was as confused by the OP's marked-up screenshots as I was—which is what led me to establish the terminology rules in the first paragraph of this post below.

Edited December 13, 2019 by DavidHertzberg
P.S.: I sent an e-mail to support@retrospect.com asking if there's a 16.5 bug; P.P.S.: fix is for crash for client volumes with names longer than 27 characters, so probably doesn't apply to OP

[redleader]

Thanks David,

I 'got around' the issue but turning off all the retrospect active tasks with activity manager and starting the client First.

But like I say that 'got around' the issue, but with OSX Catalina in it's poor current state who knows what's next!? 😞

 

 

[DavidHertzberg]

redleader,

To avoid confusing simpleminded people like me with your naming scheme, I'm going to insist that you follow certain terminology rules in this thread:  Your machine names shall be listed inside quotes (inverted commas), e.g. "JRP SERVER" and "FS SERVER".  Your volume names shall also be listed inside quotes (inverted commas), e.g. "JRP DATA" and "JRP DATA BU" and  "FS SERVER DATA" and  "FS SERVER BU" and "FS SERVER TM".  Where the same name is used for both a machine name and a volume name, e.g. "FS SERVER and "JRP SERVER", every use of that name shall be prefixed or suffixed with the word "machine" or "volume"—so we know whether you are talking about the machine "FS SERVER" or the volume "FS SERVER".  Lastly every Retrospect Inc. program shall be referred to with a name beginning with an upper-case letter, e.g. Server and Client, and followed by the word "program".

Now that we've established those rules, I'll ask you two sets of questions:  (1) Why are you running both the Server program and the Client program on the machine "FS SERVER"?  (2) When you wrote ""I 'got around' the issue but ["but" presumably intended to be  "by"] turning off all the retrospect active tasks with activity manager and starting the client First", did you mean Retrospect active tasks on the machine "JRP SERVER" or the machine "FS SERVER", and—if it was the machine "FS SERVER"—did you mean you started the Server program on that machine or the Client program on that machine (I presume that when you say "turning off all the retrospect active tasks" you are referring to tasks in the Server program)?

Let me now point out that, if you were backing up the volume "FS SERVER" on the machine "FS SERVER"  using the Server program running on the machine "JRP SERVER", of course you had to first start the Client program running on the machine "FS SERVER"!🤣  Do you ever turn that Client program off on the machine "FS SERVER", and if so why?  See the P.S. of this post for possible circumstances—local backups using machine "FS SERVER"—you might do that.

P.S.: I now realize that this up-thread post probably means that you are running the Server program on the machine "FS SERVER" to locally backup its connected—possibly external—drives to one or more Media Sets connected to machine "FS SERVER"', and also running the Server program on the machine "JRP SERVER" to do Remote Backup—over the public Internet—instead of over machine "JRP SERVER"'s LAN—of one or more drives on the machine "FS SERVER" to one or more Media Sets connected to machine "JRP SERVER"'.  Is this correct, and—if so—do you need to turn the Client program running on the machine "FS SERVER" off when you are not doing the Remote Backup?  As for macOS Catalina's "poor current state", I hear 10.15.2 fixed a number of bugs.

Edited December 18, 2019 by DavidHertzberg
P.S.: I now realize that your up-thread post probably means you are, in addition to local backups using machine "FS SERVER", also doing a Remote Backup of machine "FS SERVER" using machine "JRP SERVER"