what happens during "closing?"

[Guest]

What is going on during "closing?" I once found a reference to "closing" in the Retro "help" file, but all it said was that it takes a long time, and I could never find it again (a problem I have with "help" files)! It's very frustrating to watch what appears to be a "dead" screen while the only real information says zero files and zero KB remaining. I have found that if I wait long enough, retro picks up and finishes he phase it's in. This obviousy isn't a show-stopper, but I would like to know what is going on.

[rhwalker]

Catalog compression (if you have that enabled for the Backup Set in use), tape rewind (if you have that enabled for the behavior on quit), computing prime numbers (just kidding). For this reason, if you run a succesion of scripts to get the job done, it can compress the catalog at the end of each script, which is why we don't compress the catalog until a tape is full and is shelved for posterity, and the Backup Set has moved on to new media. Compressed catalogs also take longer to do the file matching step, which is another reason to keep catalogs uncompressed for active backup sets.