Retrospect 17 Client Connection Popup

[Hofstede]

Just installed Retrospect 17. Installed without a hitch.

 

However, first thing I notice that you now get a very annoying popup window telling you which clients ProActive backup is currently trying to connect to. 

To make things worse is that this popup even covers the window you are currently working on, so you have to close it or move it aside to continue. Really?

 

Please give us an option to disable this popup or only let it pop up in the background, not in the foreground.

 

[Mayoff]

Can you contact support@retrospect.com with a screenshot of this window? It isn't something you should be seeing. 

[Mayoff]

Turns out this is a bug in version 17 that will be fixed in our first update out soon.  It is bug 8547

[DavidHertzberg]

Hofstede,

Are you actually using the Web-based Management Console with Retrospect Windows 17.0.0.180?  In that case this popup window might be a too-obtrusive byproduct of "New: Dashboard displays status for backup engines".

Or are you just using Proactive scripts with Retrospect Windows 17.0.0.180?  In that case this popup window might be a too-obtrusive byproduct of "Improved: Client Discovery: Support for per-minute polling".

P.S.: Here's a little Version 17.0 "tea leaf reading" by a non-insider, based on the Retrospect Windows 17 User's Guide posted on 5 March—supplementing the  Retrospect Windows cumulative Release Notes:

IMHO it's significant that the release occurred 3 March in the first week in March, although x.0 releases have usually occurred the second week in March.  It looks as if Product Management decided "there's no possibility certain new major features are going to be ready in another week, so let's 'quick-ship' a 17.0 release containing bug fixes plus the three new features that are ready—and then follow up ASAP with a 17.1 or 17.5 release with  the other new features."

The 17.0 feature that IMHO will be of major significance to many Retrospect administrators is the "10x Faster Proactive AI" combined with "Client Discovery: Support for per-minute polling".  Page 6 of the UG says "Customers with many endpoints offline at various times will see a 10x performance increase in how fast Retrospect Backup finds the next available computer."😃  Hofstede's complaint in the OP would thus be explainable as attempt-to-connect monitoring code someone failed to disable pre-release (forehead-smacking by harried engineers in Walnut Creek no doubt preceded the head of RTS's second post🤣).

The 17.0 feature cluster that IMHO will not be of major significance to most Retrospect administrators is "Automatic Onboarding with Retrospect Management Console".  This is obviously intended as an attempt to salvage the "go big or go home" strategy I have described elsewhere as an apparent Product Management failure.  The only administrators who'd care about Onboarding are either multi-customer consultants or have really big installations (you, Hofstede?), but pages 5-6 of the UG include a link to a KB article that describes the feature—showing Product Management thinks it's saleable.🤨

The 17.0 feature that IMHO may help all Retrospect administrators fight ransomware is "Restore Preflight".  UG Page 7: "Retrospect now allows customers to export a ... complete CSV for your [past] backup ... including each file, its metadata, and its backup location and filename or tape."  Useful? 🤔

[Hofstede]

@Mayoff Thanks for the info.

[DavidHertzberg]

Hofstede and anyone else experiencing this problem,

On Friday 3 April I "attended" a webinar on Remote Backup, given by the head of Retrospect Tech Support with an long introduction by the head of North American Sales.  The Sales person said there will be a new release of Retrospect 17 "in about two weeks".  I assume that will include a fix for bug 8547, since—as implied in the second P.S. paragraph up-thread—it sounds as if an engineer forgot in the "quickie" release of 17.0 to remove all debugging code.

[DavidHertzberg]

Hofstede and anyone else experiencing this problem,

Arise ye prisoners of Proactive (a cultural reference to the stretched-out release date);  Retrospect Windows  17.0.1.165—released 1 May— includes "ProactiveAI: Fixed issue where dialog appeared for clients not found on network (#8547)". 😂  It also includes Linux Client AES-256 link encryption. 

This appears to be the promised bug-fix release for 17.0.0, especially for Storage Groups.  However there are also enhancements, including 3 for Remote Backup.   I guess Work From Home showed the need for these, and probably also uncovered bugs in Storage Groups and the speeded-up ProactiveAI.