Unknown Windows error 487

[haggis999]

I have just moved Retrospect Professional 12.6.1.101 to a new Windows 10 PC. With the help of the User Guide, I have successfully got my backup scripts working, but one of my daily duplication scripts always generates the following error message. I have no problem accessing the target folder (My Pictures - DUPLICATED from PC) on my NAS via Windows File Explorer and if I run the job again all is well.

Can anyone explain this rather odd behaviour? My searches for Windows error 487 have not proved very useful so far.  

 

--Log--

  + Duplicate using MyPicsDuplicateToNAS at 5/8/2021 11:00 AM

                        [*] MapError: unknown Windows error 487

                        [*] TNetResource::Connect: UNetAddConnection2 failed, osErr 487, error -1001

                        [*] MapError: unknown Windows error 487

                        [*] TNetResource::Connect: UNetAddConnection2 failed, osErr 487, error -1001

                        Can't access volume My Pictures - DUPLICATED from PC... on Photos on Bonzonas, error -1001 (unknown Windows OS error)

            5/8/2021 11:00:23 AM: Execution incomplete ..

 

[DavidHertzberg]

haggis999,

You might consider upgrading to Retrospect Windows 17, which—given the overdueness of Retrospect 18—will (if past Retrospect Inc. practice continues) give you a free update to that version.  (I've never been paid a cent by Retrospect "Inc." or any of its predecessors, and I pay for my upgrades.)  The cumulative Release Notes show, for Retrospect Windows 16.5, "Duplicate: Fixed issue where Retrospect would crash in rare instances (#8208)"—but I don't know whether that's your error.  If the exact same Duplicate script wasn't giving you an error on a pre-Windows-10 machine, maybe a Retrospect version updated for Windows 10 will fix it.  If it doesn't, you'll get 30 days of free personalized Retrospect Tech Support to get an engineering fix started.

OTOH you could save US$120—assuming you stick with the Desktop Edition—by doing what I started doing in early 2017 as a workaround for Retrospect Mac -530 Backup script errors that the engineers couldn't manage to fix.  That was to run the same script with a "No Files" Selector (the Retrospect Mac term is Rule) as a "sacrificial" script scheduled 5 minutes before the "real" script.  The "sacrificial" script would fail as expected, but the "real" script would run OK.  Using a Selector for a Duplicate script is described on page 198 of the Retrospect Windows 16 User's Guide (I prefer that version because an employee I've nicknamed the StorCentric Slasher has made cuts to the version 17 UGs in apparent preparation for version 19 (now not version 18) with a revised GUI—radically revised from Retrospect Windows' early-1990s GUI).  BTW I still run the "sacrificial" script, but in Retrospect Mac 16.6 it doesn't fail.

 

Edited May 17, 2021 by DavidHertzberg
Edit: In next-to-last sentence of 2nd paragraph, version 19.x—_not_ 18—will have the revised GUI.

[haggis999]

Hi David,
Many thanks for those suggestions and apologies for my rather slow response. Other matters have taken precedence over the past few days.

My problematic duplication script failed again this morning (as usual). The error message tends to vary a bit and today's version is shown below. I was intending to try out your idea of using a 'sacrificial' script, but my initial attempts to open Retrospect never got beyond the Dashboard and a never ending wait for it to close the instance of Retrospect running in the background. I had to kill all references to Retrospect in the Windows Task Manager before I was finally able to open the app.

This had the unexpected effect of launching that duplication script as soon as Retrospect opened. The script completed without any errors on this occasion. Does that offer any further clues to the reasons for my problem?

 

EDIT:  I have set my Execution Startup Preferences to Enable Retrospect launcher service, Automatically launch Retrospect, and to Stay in Retrospect after script execution is complete. My Security Preferences are set to Run Retrospect as the logged-in user. Those settings are the same as on my old computer and never previously prevented me from manually opening Retrospect.

 

+	Duplicate using MyPicsDuplicateToNAS at 5/15/2021 9:00 AM
		[*] MapError: unknown Windows error 487
		[*] TNetResource::Connect: UNetAddConnection2 failed, osErr 487, error -1001
		[*] MapError: unknown Windows error 487
		[*] TNetResource::Connect: UNetAddConnection2 failed, osErr 487, error -1001
		Can't access volume My Pictures - DUPLICATED from PC... on Photos on Bonzonas, error -1001 (unknown Windows OS error)
	5/15/2021 9:00:21 AM: Execution incomplete

 

[haggis999]

I have now run a test with a 'No Files' copy of my script set to run 5 mins before the proper duplication script. Sadly, it didn't help, as the No Files script also failed with Windows error 487. Incidentally, I had no problem today in opening the Retrospect interface.

I have emailed the UK sales office to see if they are prepared to offer a free upgrade to V18 if I buy V17 now.

   

--Script Summary--
* Script: MyPicsDuplicateToNAS(no files)
* Date: 5/16/2021 11:28 AM
* Errors: 1
* Warnings: 0
* Performance: 0.0 MB/minute
* Duration: 00:00:01
* Server: Scan 3XS

--Log--
  + Duplicate using MyPicsDuplicateToNAS(no files) at 5/16/2021 11:28 AM
		[*] MapError: unknown Windows error 487
		[*] TNetResource::Connect: UNetAddConnection2 failed, osErr 487, error -1001
		[*] MapError: unknown Windows error 487
		[*] TNetResource::Connect: UNetAddConnection2 failed, osErr 487, error -1001
		Can't access volume My Pictures - DUPLICATED from PC... on Photos on Bonzonas, error -1001 (unknown Windows OS error)
	5/16/2021 11:28:14 AM: Execution incomplete ..

[DavidHertzberg]

haggis999,

Did your "proper" duplicate script run OK 5 minutes after your "sacrificial" script?  My concept of why my "sacrificial" script worked for a Backup is that it gave the Retrospect "backup server" program time to "un-confuse" itself after initialization.  That would, in an arse-backwards (excuse my French) way, match up with your report that your Duplicate script ran OK when run immediately after Retrospect opened.  OTOH, maybe your problem is caused by your having previously run one or more Backup scripts on a Windows 10 PC.

I forgot to suggest another alternative, which is a 45-day free trial of Retrospect Windows 17.  Here's the URL for a sign-up; since it has a Country field, I presume the offer also applies to Scotland (assuming that's where you're located, based on your Forums "handle").  If you're currently using the Desktop Edition of Retrospect Windows 12, be sure to un-checkmark the box next to I want to protect servers as well as endpoints—or it appears Sales will default to upgrading you to a trial of the expensive Multi-Server Edition.  Also, if you choose take advantage of this trial offer, make sure you've got a backup of your Retrospect Windows 12 application—or have made a copy of your license code for Retrospect Windows 12.6 so you can re-download it here—then you won't be stuck with paying a US$120 charge in case the trial of Retrospect Windows 17 doesn't solve your problem.

P.S.: I'd forgotten that Retrospect Windows still has a separate Immediate mode, which may be what you're using when your "Manual executions always run OK" per your post below.  In 2009 Retrospect Mac 8 did away with its Immediate mode in favor of generating a one-time schedule for a pre-defined script; the one-time schedule is generated by clicking the Run button while the script is selected in the Retrospect Mac Console GUI.  Though I've recently done three Duplicate (which Retrospect Mac  8 renamed Copy) runs, including at least whose source was a Windows-formatted USB3 thumb drive, they've been done by defining a script and clicking the Run button.  My guess is that you're experiencing a peculiarity of (the frequently-updated-by-MS) Windows 10, for which—sometime after Retrospect Windows 12.6—the Retrospect engineers maybe made an un-release-noted automated scripts fix.

Edited May 18, 2021 by DavidHertzberg
Edit: In last sentence of 2nd paragraph, you can instead revert to _downloaded_ Retrospect Windows 12.6 if you've copied your license code. P.S.: My guess is you're experiencing a peculiarity of Windows 10 later fixed for Retrospect automated scripts.

[haggis999]

I run 2 backup scripts and 1 duplicate script on a daily basis (ignoring that extra sacrificial script). The recent failures of the duplicate script on my new PC were all via automatically scheduled executions. Manual executions always run OK.

My username does indeed betray my Scottish origins, and where I spent the first 40 years of my life, though I now live in the south of England. However, most commercial organisations make no distinction between Scotland, Wales, England, or Northern Ireland. We are all part of the United Kingdom (at the moment). The Scottish National Party aspires to separate Scotland from the UK, but with any luck that will never happen. We are stronger together in my opinion and have been so since 1707.

Thanks for the free V17 trial suggestion and the warning about that checkbox. I'd missed the free trial option on the main menu and it's not mentioned on the Downloads page.

[haggis999]

Hi David,
When running my problematic duplicate operation manually I wasn't using the immediate mode. I used Manage Scripts and scheduled a one-off execution. However, a quick test of immediate mode proved that this also worked fine.

I've just had a reply from Simon Carr, the EMEA Regional Director of Retrospect Inc. He is expecting V18 to be released in the next couple of weeks and has confirmed that if I buy V17 now then I would get a free upgrade to V18. However, the following quote from his email shows that your expectation that this will include a radically revised UI is not correct.

Quote

The UI won't be changing too much with v18. There is a new remote UI in the works, which is being developed to enable some other features and architecture, so there will be a UI/UX revamp in the future. Currently I would pencil this in for early 2022 and v19, but that's certainly not set in stone at this time.

Will installing V17 uninstall V12?  You warned me to copy the password if I wish to revert to V12, but I'm not aware of any password required to install this software (though my Backup Sets do have passwords). Did you really mean to say I should copy the license code?

[DavidHertzberg]

haggis999,

My mistake; in this up-thread post—which I've now corrected—I meant license code instead of password.☹️

As for Simon Carr's reply, I've just had a phone conversation with his boss.  Because of a schedule slippage from what I had been previously told, the new UI will indeed be introduced no earlier than version 19; I have revised this up-thread post accordingly.  If it turns out to be only a remote UI, that will be a change from what was stated in the "Retrospect Console Preview" Knowledge Base article written in conjunction with the release of Retrospect 16.6.  That article states, as the first sentence in the second paragraph of its lead, "We plan to steadily build Retrospect Console into a replacement for the current user interface [my emphasis] for Windows and Mac."  Per the cumulative Release Notes, that's distinct from the remote Management Console.

[haggis999]

Unless they introduce new features of genuine interest to me, both V18 and V19 are now less appealing prospects. If a trial of V17 doesn't fix my current bug, even with the help of tech support, I will probably just revert to V12 and wait for a genuine overhaul of the user interface.

I hope to give V17 a go tomorrow.

[DavidHertzberg]

haggis999,

In the frequently-repeated question of your British countryman administrator Nigel Smith, "what has changed?" in your installation besides the switch to a Windows 10 "backup server".

In this post in a 2018 thread you reported changing your Synology NAS, which was the source for your Duplicate scripts, to the Btrfs filesystem.  Is the version of that filesystem you're using compatible with Windows 10?

Somehow it seems that cutting out the Activity Monitor makes your Duplicate scripts run OK.  Maybe, when you try V17, you should also try using the new-with-16.6 Retrospect Console instead of the Retrospect Launcher service.

[haggis999]

My setup is not quite as you have described. The NAS is the destination for my Retrospect backups. The source for all backups is my primary Windows 10 workstation. It is that workstation that was recently replaced and thus required a reinstallation of Retrospect. The only things I needed to change in my Retrospect scripts were data paths, as the new machine has a different disk configuration from the old workstation.

The old Windows 10 workstation had no problem working with the NAS.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "cutting out the Activity Monitor" when running my duplicate script in a more manual fashion. After setting up a one-time execution via 'Manage Scripts', I then watch it all happen via the Activity Monitor.

I will check out the new Retrospect Console as soon as I have installed V17. That is not a feature that had previously caught my eye.

 

[haggis999]

I was not too surprised to find that V17 made no difference whatsoever to my failing duplicate script  ☹️

I've just signed up for the Retrospect Management Console, but am rather confused when I view my problem script via the console. The source setting is fine, but I can't drill down to the required folder on my NAS. It only allows me to select one of the top-level shared folders on the NAS.

To be specific, the script on my workstation is set up to access the Photos/My Pictures - DUPLICATED from PC folder on the NAS, but the Console only lets me select the Photos folder.

 

EDIT:  I was looking under 'All Network Shares' to specify the duplication destination, but I've just found my correct destination folder under 'All Local' in the Console interface. However, as soon as that problem was solved, another one appeared. The Console insists on ticking the source folder in the destination pane (in addition to my selected folder). Even if I untick that unwanted selection it just reappears when I save the script. The reverse applies In the source pane, so that both source AND destination are selected in both panes!

When I came out of editing this script to view the list of all my scripts, this duplication script was summarised as having my NAS folder as the source and no destination at all!  Is there a way out of this nightmare?

 

[DavidHertzberg]

(Disclaimer: Anything I may say about the intentions of Retrospect "Inc." in this or any other post is merely the result of "reading the tea leaves", the "tea leaves" being documentation and public announcements supplemented by an occasional morsel from Retrospect Sales.  I have never been paid a cent by Retrospect "Inc." or its predecessors, and I pay for my upgrades. Any judgements expressed are—obviously—mine alone. The same is true of Retrospect's history, especially with references to here.)

haggis999,

Because you're evidently now signed up for the 45-day free trial of V17,  you're entitled to 30 days of free personalized Tech Support.  If you want your Retrospect problem solved, you're going to have to use it.  Here's how to do that.  I can't do it myself because I use Retrospect Mac—not Retrospect Windows.  Don't forget to include, either in the Problem Statement or in an Additional Note, the circumstances in which Duplicate has worked for you under Windows 10.  My personal experience is that Tech Support will first send the person who files a Support Case that requests a bug fix an instrumented  version of Retrospect .  Tech Support operates under a decades-old rule that they can't refer a bug to the engineers until they can reproduce it on their own equipment, and you'll have to guide them in doing that. The second thing you should do is to e-mail Director of Worldwide Sales Werner Walter the number of your Support Case—which you should write down when you submit it—at Werner.Walter@retrospect.com.

I'm sorry the Retrospect Management Console didn't solve your problem, but I suggested you use the non-Management Console described in the "Retrospect Console Preview" Knowledge Base article.  In any case I'm not very surprised there's a design limitation in the Management Console, which IMHO was introduced in 2016 as part of a "go big or go home" (that's U.S. football slang) strategy devised by Retrospect Product Management.  Product Management's marketing strategy was directed at consultants, in the hope that they would "make the big bucks" by installing Retrospect—as opposed to a competing client-server backup product—at multiple business-client sites.  The Retrospect 16.0 version of the Management Console was limited strictly to monitoring "backup server" engines at business-client sites; the 16.5 version added—evidently at the demand of consultants—"Ability to create and edit scripts on a specific engine" and "Ability to create and edit backup sets for disk, NAS, and cloud on a specific engine". 

IMHO those two Management Console abilities were demos.  We've only had one consultant who posted on the Forums concerning his attempt to use the Management Console.  He gave up for 2 basic reasons: [1] The ability to create and edit scripts on a business-client's "backup server" engine doesn't have the Two-Factor Authentication and cloud-encryption-required capabilities he considered essential in case someone stole a password from his consulting site.  [2] The Management Console uses Heroku—a cloud platform as a service, which for practical use requires that the Management Console be defined as an application at any Heroku regional site from which it is invoked; this definition had evidently only been done at Heroku's U.S. regional site—not its APAC (including Australia) regional site—which made it give him results hours behind in eastern Australia.  However he found other bugs.

In December 2019 the non-Management "Retrospect Console Preview"—which I suggested you use—was introduced in Retrospect 16.6.  Again, the intro in the KB article I linked-to in the second non-disclaimer paragraph says

Quote

Retrospect Console is the next-generation Retrospect user interface for Windows and Mac. This preview edition allows you to easily create a comprehensive backup strategy with a couple clicks and shows you a dashboard view of your backups.

We plan to steadily build Retrospect Console into a replacement for the current user interface for Windows and Mac.

IMHO there are 2 Product Management reasons for replacing the existing Retrospect user interfaces—one for Retrospect Windows and one for Retrospect Mac: [1] The existing Retrospect Mac user interface is considered too complicated for the average Drobo user; "other... architecture" in Simon Carr's quote in this up-thread post confirms what I'd heard—that a variant of the "backup server" running on a souped-up Linux-based NAS such as a Drobo is being developed by the engineers.  [2] The existing Retrospect Windows user interface is even worse; it was frozen in 2008 (in its Windows 3.1—based design)—as explained in the first paragraph of this section of the old Wikipedia article.  So the non-Management "Retrospect Console Preview" is a demo based on another demo.  Thus its design limitations would prevent it from being any more suitable than the Management Console for temporarily reproducing the conditions in which Duplicate has worked for you under Windows 10; sorry I didn't know enough about your particular requirements.

 

[haggis999]

Hi David,
As recommended, I have now raised a formal support request with Retrospect.

Any distinction you may have previously made between the Retrospect Management Console and the Retrospect Console Preview went right over my head! I just signed up for the only obvious option containing the word 'console'.

However, I wasn't really expecting the Management Console to be capable of "temporarily reproducing the conditions in which Duplicate has worked" for me on my previous PC. I was simply hoping that it would let me reconfirm the script parameters and offer another method of scheduling its execution (ideally bypassing the Retrospect Launcher service that is failing to run the script in my normal fashion). What I got instead was an impossibly buggy interface (I also mentioned that in my support request). 

 

[haggis999]

I have just finished a lengthy support call from a very knowledgeable Retrospect support technician in Romania, who spoke excellent English. He contacted me by phone and gained remote access to my PC via Team Viewer. The bottom line is that he fixed my problem.

It appears to have been an issue regarding the credentials for accessing my NAS when using the Launcher Service . My Retrospect security setting is to run Retrospect 'as the logged-in user', which has the side effect that it uses the 'local system account' when launched automatically. That system account was failing to access the NAS (though the error messages gave no indication that this was the cause). He worked too quickly for me to see everything he did to fix the problem, though he did disable an obscure Windows security setting (User Account Control: Run all adminstrators in Admin Approval Mode). 

After fixing the script on my PC, the Management Console now displays the script correctly, though I won't ever use the console again to modify the source or destination settings. The Retrospect technician did admit that the console was still a work in progress that lack some functionality and suffered from some bugs. The primary benefit of the Management Console is that it will let me check my backup status via the Internet when away from home.

I doubt if the trial upgrade to V17 was a key factor in this fix, but I am grateful for the rapid provision of competent technical support and will pay for the upgrade at the end of the trial.

[DavidHertzberg]

haggis999,

I'm glad the Support tech fixed your problem.  Because you described it as only having to do with one of your daily Duplicate scripts, I—being a Retrospect Mac user—didn't recognize it as being a Launcher Service problem.  If I had, I would have posted a link to the "Auto Launching Guide for Retrospect for Windows" Knowledge Base article.  That article begins:

Quote

Starting with Windows Vista/Server 2008 Microsoft made a change where Windows will no longer allow services/programs to interact with the user and introduced User Account Control. With Retrospect this means that when Retrospect auto launches [my emphasis] Windows puts Retrospect into a protective desktop environment where the user will not be able view and control Retrospect. We recommend that Retrospect be left open and minimized in this case [my emphasis] but if you want Retrospect to auto launch here is a guide on how to accomplish this.

It has this section in it, whose last paragraph seems to describe what the Support technician did via Team Viewer.  You can rejoice that, because of what he did, your Winows 10 machine will continue not to be burdened with having the "backup server"—complete with GUI code only needed occasionally—occupying RAM continually as "open and minimized".  But, in these days of RAM running into the gigabytes, that burden might not have been so big.

But let's further consider the "open and minimized" recommendation in the first part of the last KB article sentence quoted in the preceding paragraph .  Starting with version 8.0 in 2009, Retrospect Mac eliminated its Launcher service (which used to be named RetroRun) by splitting the "backup server" into two separate programs.  The Engine is designed to run constantly in the background on the "backup server" Mac; it does all the good stuff you'd expect—including running scripts when they're scheduled as RetroRun used to delegate—but has no user interface except through its Preferences.  The user interface is shifted to the Console, which is a non-background program that can be started and stopped by the administrator.  If you license anything more expensive than the Desktop Edition (which is what I license), you can even run the Retrospect Mac Console on another Mac on the same LAN/WAN.

AFAICT it was EMC management which urged this split, and the original intention was to make the same split for Retrospect Windows.  However the 2008 Microsoft Windows "security enhancement" described in the first sentence of the quoted KB article paragraph made that impossible.  What I described in this up-thread post is an attempt—now postponed until at least early 2022—to make that split in a round-about way, by making it possible to run the Engine on a souped-up Drobo or other Linux-based NAS.  The "remote UI" mentioned by Simon Carr as quoted by you in that up-thread post would be the Web-server-enabled equivalent of the Retrospect Mac Console running on another Mac, except that—from what I hear—the  "remote Console" would also have a version executable on a Windows machine.  But there's the little question of the terminology and GUI of the forthcoming "remote Console". 🤣  Retrospect Mac 8  thoroughly revised the the terminology and GUI used up through Retrospect Mac 6 (which I know, from running it once a week, is pretty much a non-multi-threaded version of what's still in Retrospect Windows).  My cynical impression is that, as shown by my Retrospect "Inc." contact being constantly involved in meetings, there's a big internal struggle about what the "remote Console" terminology and GUI should be.  The non-Management "Retrospect Console Preview" introduced in version 16.6 seems to be a "trial balloon" (copying Management Console's incomplete interface)—installable directly on a  Retrospect Windows "backup server"—for new terminology and GUI, with which IMHO Retrospect Windows' built-in GUI and terminology would also have to be made compatible to avoid confusing Retrospect Windows-Drobo administrators.  Then Retrospect Windows administrators might have to spend 5 hours learning the new terminology and GUI 😱, as I did in 2015 when I upgraded directly from Retrospect Mac 6 to Retrospect Mac 12.

[haggis999]

My new Windows workstation has 32GB of RAM, so I would not be too worried about losing a bit of it to leave Retrospect running but minimised. However, my current auto launching process usually works fine and usually still lets me open the normal interface, so I'll leave things as they are for the time being. 

Having decided to go for the V17 upgrade (and a free upgrade to V18 when it arrives), I will probably not consider further upgrades until they make a serious change to the GUI.