Retrospect 6.0 incompatible with Tiger

[scotty321]

We have found a serious conflict between Retrospect 6.0.212, which is supposed to be Tiger-compatible, and Tiger. Even with the Retrospect driver update 6.5.101, the conflict is still present.

 

 

 

Launching Retrospect 6.0.212 in Tiger yields an error message in the console.log file that looks something like one of these actual lines, pulled from 2 different Tiger machines in our testing:

 

 

 

sh: line 1: kill: 15,747: no such pid

 

sh: line 1: kill: 23,459: no such pid

 

 

 

But this causes a more serious problem for the user. Because as soon as Retrospect is launched, we have noticed tremendous slowdowns & spinning beachballs for many applications that are currently running, and all affected programs must be quit out of & relaunched to re-gain their full speed (or force-quit in the case of Microsoft Word).

 

 

 

We have seen the slowdowns & spinning beachballs occur in these programs as soon as we have launched Retrospect:

 

 

 

FileMaker 7 (but not FileMaker 6)

 

Safari

 

iTunes

 

Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, & Excel (but not Entourage)

 

Now Up-To-Date 5.x (but not Now Up-To-Date 4.x)

 

 

 

These programs were all running with open documents, running at full speed before launching Retrospect. Then, IMMEDIATELY after launching Retrospect, all of these programs started experiencing significant speed loss, spinning beachballs, and in the case of Microsoft Word a force-quit is necessary. All other affected programs must be quit out of & re-launched in order to regain the full speed.

 

 

 

We have been able to reliably reproduce this over & over again, yet it doesn't seem to happen 100% of the time. It seems to only happen after Retrospect is "idle" for several hours. And then, after being "idle", a Retrospect launch causes the slowdowns.

 

 

 

You could do a simple test of this yourself by launching a local database in FileMaker 7, and performing a couple of "finds" and flipping through records. Notice the instantaneous speed. Then launch Retrospect. Immediately, the "finds" and flipping through records will slow down tremendously.

 

 

 

Thanks,

 

Scott

[shadowspawn]

I am not seeing the same issues. I am running Mac OS X 10.4.2, Retrospect 6.0.212 and Retrospect 6.0 Driver Update 6.5.102. I checked for Console messages and interaction with FileMaker 7.

 

IMHO, the console message suggests an installation problem. Retrospect reconfigures the background scheduling application (RetroRun) when it is launched, and this might be failing.

 

Have you tried reinstalling Retrospect?

 

And more speculative questions:

Do you have devices connected for backup use, like tape drives or libraries?

Is Retrospect idle when you launch it? (Sitting at the Retrospect Directory window.)

Is the logged in user an Admin user?

Is there only a single user logged in?

 

What is running before and after you launch Retrospect? Try "ps -auxwww | grep Retro" in Terminal.

 

When I try this without Retrospect running I see a RetroRun process owned by root.

john% ps -auxwww | grep Retro

root 2113 0.0 0.0 28588 432 ?? Ss 4:29PM 0:00.00 /Library/StartupItems/RetroRun/RetroRun

john 2120 0.0 0.0 18060 260 p1 R+ 4:29PM 0:00.00 grep Retro

 

and then after launching Retrospect I see a new RetroRun, and Retrospect, both owned by root.

 

john% ps -auxwww | grep Retro

root 2142 0.4 1.0 97636 8828 ?? S 4:33PM 0:06.66 /System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Support/LaunchCFMApp /Applications/Retrospect 6.0/Retrospect/Contents/MacOS/AuthenticateUser.app/Contents/MacOS/../../../Retrospect

root 2149 0.0 0.1 28592 608 ?? Ss 4:33PM 0:00.03 /Library/StartupItems/RetroRun/RetroRun

john 2157 0.0 0.0 18060 236 p1 R+ 4:37PM 0:00.00 grep Retro

[scotty321]

Hi John,

 

Thanks for your great posting!!

 

Even though I'm unsure how there could have been an installation problem (I originally did an "erase & install" of Tiger and then installed Retrospect from scratch -- on 2 different test machines!!), based on your recommendation, I completely uninstalled Retrospect using the Retrospect installer's "uninstall" command, and then I reinstalled it from scratch using the Retrospect installer. I then restarted my computer, updated the driver, and then launched Retrospect several times. It no longer produces any of the error messages in the console.log file!!

 

The only thing that I can think of off the top of my head is that when Tiger first came out, I installed the version of Retrospect that was available at that time... and then I installed the newer 6.0.212 version of Retrospect OVER the older version, without uninstalling the previous version first. Would that cause these types of problems?

 

I will be monitoring this situation closely over the next few days to see if the error messages come back -- I wonder if some other program on my computer is interfering with Retrospect & causing these error messages, and perhaps I just haven't launched this mysterious program yet today to see the results of the conflict. Although I'm cautiously optimistic that maybe this is the solution.

 

Retrospect hasn't even kicked in yet for an automated backup either -- I'll be curious to see what happens after an automated backup.

 

To answer your other questions:

 

1. When I type in "ps -auxwww | grep Retro" in Terminal, I see the exact same results that you see. (This is both before & after I did the reinstall of Retrospect).

 

2. The user is logged in as an Admin user, and although Fast User Switching is turned on, only one user is logged in.

 

3. Two FireWire drives are connected for backup purposes (daisy chained to each other & plugged into one FireWire port), while a FireWire hub with iSight & an iPod & a CD burner are plugged into the other FireWire port. (Power Mac G4 Dual 800)

 

4. Retrospect is idle when I launch it.

 

Thanks again for your help! If you have any more insight at this point, I would love to hear it!

 

Thanks,

Scott

[CallMeDave]

Quote:

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4. Retrospect is idle when I launch it.

 

---

 

What does this mean? By definition, if you haven't launched a program/process, it's idle. And if a program is _not_ idle, then it's alredy been launched!

 

This holds true for Retrospect; if it's running an unattended, scripted backup, then it has already been launched.

 

Dave

[scotty321]

I meant, Retrospect is not running when I click on its icon in the dock. It may have run an automated backup at one point, but it has quit itself after the process was complete. In any case, Retrospect is NOT running.

[shadowspawn]

Glad the console messages are fixed but it might be a couple of days before you can tell whether the performance problems are gone, fingers crossed.

 

A problem with the client is moving or renaming the client after the install. I expect there are similar problems with the Retrospect application. A reinstall is a simple fix.

 

If you hit the performance problems again, I suggest checking for whether the CPU is being hogged, using Activity Monitor. This doesn't explain why only some applications are affected, but I have seen Retrospect burning the CPU when confused about hardware status.

[scotty321]

You won't believe this. After 24 hours of the slowdown problems being gone, the slowdowns came back today! And... the error messages are back in the console.log! Every single time I launch Retrospect, I get this error message in the console.log:

 

 

 

sh: line 1: kill: 26,036: no such pid

 

 

 

I did upgrade to the new Retrospect Driver Update 6.5.102 this morning, and shortly afterwards is when the error messages came back!

[scotty321]

Retrospect is definitely incompatible with Tiger, and I have reported this to all the major Macintosh news sites such as MacFixit. After Retrospect autolaunches on its own once for a scheduled backup, the next time you manually launch Retrospect is when it starts adding those funky "kill" messages to the console.log & starts slowing down the entire machine. This is reproducible 100% of the time. Dantz, we need a fix ASAP!!!

[CallMeDave]

Quote:

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This is reproducible 100% of the time

 

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The fact that it happens each and every time on your machine is not enough to call it "reproducible."

 

In software, that term is reserved for use when you can provide specific steps that will cause the problem on a clean test bed.

 

Since this does not happen, for example, on my machine, then there is something specific with your configuration that is interacting with Retrospect.

 

You might consider booting the Mac from a different physical or logical volume with a fresh Tiger/Retrospect install, and see if the problem persists. That could at least help you know if this is hardware or software related.

 

Dave

[scotty321]

This also happens on two of my clients' server machines, also... which are also fresh Tiger/Retrospect installs. They have even less software installed on their machines than me. My machine, however, was a full "erase & install" of Tiger.

[scotty321]

I will see what I can do to troubleshoot this problem. There's only one thing that all 3 of these machines have in common, and that is that they are all running Now Up To Date & Now Contact, and the Now Server Manager. Now Software has had some problems with their software interfering with the Mac OS X SystemUI Server (confirmed by Now Software), so this may be a bug that conflicts with Retrospect. I will see if uninstalling Now Software fixes the problem.

[Gregx007]

Quote:

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The fact that it happens each and every time on your machine is not enough to call it "reproducible."

 

---

 

This problem isn't isolated on scotty321's machine. Me and many other users have just the same problems and surely we have quite different hardware/configuration setups (btw: I don't have "Now" apps).

 

Fact is: As soon as Retrospect launches (user or automatic) a bunch of main apps get the "beachball syndrom". For me most noticeable for

- PowerMail

- GoLive

- InDesign

 

Only a relaunch of these apps resolves the problem.

 

It's absolutely clear that Retrospect is to blame for that issue - and the Dantz support just leaves us alone with this problem. Not even any statement. That's not ok !!!!!!!!!!!

[CallMeDave]

Quote:

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Me and many other users have just the same problems and surely we have quite different hardware/configuration setups

 

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Then it would be important to figure out what these systems have in common.

 

That's why posts should include full hardware/software/configuration information in the first post. Otherwise people are just guessing or grasping (as the NOW software suggestion might be).

 

I have Retrospect 6.0.212 running on OS X 10.4.2 on three different machines without seeing this. So that proves that the program _can_ run without problem on _some_ systems. To know why it doesn't run as expected on _your_ system, you should provide specific information about that system.

 

Dave

[scotty321]

Greg, it's fairly obvious that nobody at Dantz reads these forums, and that nobody at Dantz cares about Mac users. I have been having this problem since the beginning of upgrading to Tiger, and Dantz doesn't give one crap about my issues. Dantz doesn't even read these forums. Robin Mayoff of Dantz moderates these forums, but has not escalated my issue to any engineers within Dantz. I am finished recommending Retrospect to any of my clients... DANTZ IS DEAD TO ME, and they have treated me like CRAP.

[scotty321]

My problems continue happening, even after uninstalling Now Software from my computer. But one other thing I've noticed is that all 3 of these machines are DUAL PROCESSOR G4's & G5's. I wonder if Retrospect is incompatible with DUAL PROCESSORS?

 

Greg, are you running a dual processor?

 

Dantz really needs to step up to the plate here -- they are completely ignoring this issue which was CONFIRMED IN-HOUSE BY MACFIXIT.COM:

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20050811012951974&query=retrospect

 

The editors of MacFixit have CONFIMED this being a bug in Retrospect.

 

DANTZ - WHERE ARE YOU AND WHY DO YOU NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR CUSTOMERS? THIS IS REPRODUCIBLE 100% OF THE TIME ON 3 OF MY CLIENTS' MACHINES.

[Mayoff]

Scott,

 

Please re-read the forum rules. The forum is not an official means of contacting EMC Dantz technical support. It would be impossible for us to reply to all threads and address every question that is posted. We try and respond to posts but can not respond to all issues. Your specific issue has not been ignored, we have been investigating internally.

 

MacFixit does require a subscription to read the story, but my experience is that they do not usually test and reproduce problems, rather they report news 2nd hand from other members of the Mac community.

[Tiny Dantzer]

I have just upgraded to Tiger, and I've reinstalled Retrospect Express, along with the latest downloads. In the middle of my backup, I got an internal consistency error elem.c-821 (or it might have been 812).

 

First of all, what is this? I see it's some issue with Maxtor Drives [Knowledgebase #7979], and it has been an issue with Retrospect 5 [Knowledgebase #5742], but I can't find anything that refers to a plain old internal drive.

 

Secondly, how do I fix it?

 

Judging by all the flak I see about Retrospect vs. Tiger, I'd hope there is some new downloadable patch forthcoming.

[CallMeDave]

Article #7979 notes Maxtor only because Retrospect Express is bundled with Maxtor drives. It has nothing to do with the sort of drives being used.

 

Did you follow the steps necessary to exclude Spotlight files from Retrospect backups?

 

 

Dave

[Tiny Dantzer]

Where can I find those steps for excluding the Spotlight files?

[waltr]

Hi Tiny,

 

You should really post this in the Express forum. However, the information you are looking for is right here:

 

http://kb.dantz.com/article.asp?article=7979&p=2

 

This does not refer to an internal drive, but rather the Maxtor external drive. If this does not apply to you, start a new topic in the Express forum and give a bit more information about your setup.