robsedor Posted July 20, 2006 Report Share Posted July 20, 2006 I'm running Retrospect 6.1.126 on Mac OS X Server 10.4.6. I run a nightly script to back up the server boot drive and external RAID to a Sony Firewire AIT-2 turbo drive. The backups generally run smoothly, but twice in the past month the backup script has failed to launch and I received the following Retrospect error dialog: "Sorry, can't open the Retro.Icons (6.0) file, error -42 (too many files open)" The dialog box has a button that contains two "A" characters the are inset into square boxes. I am unable to login to Retrospect after clicking the button and must force quit the program. I checked for a crash log, but cannot find any entries. After the force quit, I am able to relaunch Retrospect normally and the next evening's backup script runs correctly. Any ideas about this error? Thanks, Robert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted July 21, 2006 Report Share Posted July 21, 2006 No idea abou the error, or the corrupt dialog box. But you can safely delete the icons file; Retrospect will rebuild whatever it needs the next time it runs. That may prevent the problem from showing up again. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nxnw Posted September 6, 2006 Report Share Posted September 6, 2006 I have virtually the exact same problem. Retrospect workgroup 6.1 and OS X client 10.4.6. The exact message goes up and, until I detect it, dismiss it (at which point Retrospect crashes), and relaunch retrospect, no backups run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waltr Posted September 6, 2006 Report Share Posted September 6, 2006 hi nx, i'm not sure what the question is here. did the above solution take care of your problem? cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robsedor Posted September 8, 2006 Author Report Share Posted September 8, 2006 I received the same error again this morning. Retrospect crashed and I rebooted. I have now deleted the Retro.Icons file. I'll report back if this appears to solve the problem. Robert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waltr Posted September 8, 2006 Report Share Posted September 8, 2006 hi robs, one thing that would be interesting to know--does this only happen after a 2 month period or so? i ask this because it's been (roughly) 2 months since you posted with this problem. i'm interested in: 1) has it not occurred in 2 months? 2) has the computer been rebooted in the last 2 months? i believe that in 10.2 there was a limit of 256 'file descriptors' that could be open at once, but that this limit has been removed with later versions of OS X. that's what makes the error so intriguing. there has only been one (dubious) post confirming that others could be having the problem, which makes it unique. you may want to examine your environment and post on what other apps run on this server. for example, do you run any Symantec utilities? these seem to cause some weird problems, but i'm sure there are others. also, do any other programs have strange behavior (and yes, i realize it's a server and you probably don't run too many apps on it) when this error occurs? one good test (after you've gotten the error, before you reboot) would be to try and burn a CD/DVD if you have a burner on that server, because that would generate a lot of 'file descriptors' being opened. of course, it may take a while before the error resurfaces. please let us know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robsedor Posted September 13, 2006 Author Report Share Posted September 13, 2006 Yes, the problem did not occur for two months, although when it first occurred I had 2 Retro.icons errors about a week apart. The server is now running 10.4.7. Afp, windows pdc, dns, open directory and software update are the only services running.The server also runs 4D server and Timbuktu. The server is backed up overnight, so generally no users are logged in. I usually access the server via Timbuktu and after the Retro.icons crash, any typed characters appeared as garbled "code." Rebooting cleared up the garbled character problem. I have not received another Retro.icons error. The modification date for the Retro.icons file I deleted was June 2006. Robert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waltr Posted September 13, 2006 Report Share Posted September 13, 2006 hi rob, interesting. it sounds like a very intermittant problem. try to keep track of when you last rebooted if the problem does reoccur. it sounds like some kind of "Memory Leak", but it's hard to tell from the description if Retrospect is leaking or some other process. from your description i would think it's not Retrospect because it sounds like the program does the Backup and then quits (which would clear any memory being held by the program). of course i could be wrong about this. one more (2 part) question: does deleting the Retro.icons file cure the problem by itself, or is a reboot required. and the reverse-->does a reboot cure the problem by itself or is the deletion of Retro.icons also necessary? cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nxnw Posted September 21, 2006 Report Share Posted September 21, 2006 Quote: i'm not sure what the question is here. did the above solution take care of your problem? I have deleted the retro.icons file, but the error has recurred. It is quite troubling, because several scheduled backups are missed each time it happens, before the failure is detected. It has happened 4 times since late August, once at least since the retro.icons file was deleted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waltr Posted September 21, 2006 Report Share Posted September 21, 2006 hi nx, does your problem also happen every couple of months, or more frequently? also, can you answer some of the questions i was posing to robs? i.e.: do other programs also have weird problems? does the activity monitor (or top) show anything unusual, like a process hogging a lot of RAM? do you reboot this machine regularly, or does it only happen after a period of no reboots? does deleting the Retro.icons file cure the problem by itself, or is a reboot required. and the reverse-->does a reboot cure the problem by itself or is the deletion of Retro.icons also necessary? finally, robs is on 10.4.6 server, but you said in your above post that you are running the Retrospect application on 10.4.6 Desktop, correct? can you give these details: version and build of Retrospect OS Retrospect runs under model of Macintosh external devices backup device and hopefully compare/contrast your config to robs'. cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nxnw Posted September 21, 2006 Report Share Posted September 21, 2006 1. It has occurred 4 times since late August. 10.4.6 client had recently been installed (over 10.2.x) and retrospect 6.1.126 desktop had been installed a few weeks earlier. 2. Mac is being used as a fileserver (personal filesharing), also running Now up to date and now contact servers, an email client (unattended, that receives and files emails sent from our fax machine), and for the last 2 weeks aprox, ProjectForum (a wiki server). All running flawlessly. 3. Activity monitor does not indicate anything unusual in terms of CPU or memory use. 4. The machine is rarely rebooted. I generally reboot it in conjunction with software installs and maintenance procedures. Otherwise, it goes for months without attention. I believe it has not been rebooted since mid August. 5. The problem occurs as follows. The error message appears. When it is dismissed, retrospect crashes. When retrospect is restarted, it runs normally until the problem recurs. Deleting the retro.icons file appears to have had no impact. I believe there has been no reboot. 6. B&W upgraded with a Sonnet G4 card. There is a ATTO scsi card and an Atlas IV UW drive as well as a seagate PATA drive. 5 partitions in all. Most of the backups are to a "backup" volume on the PATA drive. 2 backups a week are to an internal CD burner (LG GCE-8240B). No external devices (unless you include the UPS with USB interface). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nxnw Posted January 24, 2007 Report Share Posted January 24, 2007 It is a pity that 5 months would pass without EMC doing anything about this problem. Bigger pity that I have not been able to rely on this formerly excellent product since version 4.0. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhwalker Posted January 24, 2007 Report Share Posted January 24, 2007 Quote: It is a pity that 5 months would pass without EMC doing anything about this problem. Bigger pity that I have not been able to rely on this formerly excellent product since version 4.0. This is a user-to-user support forum. Were you expecting one of us users to fix this problem? If you are having this problem, did you call Retrospect support or file a support request under your support/maintenance agreement? Contact Retrospect Support Quote: B&W upgraded with a Sonnet G4 card. This may be the cause of your issue. Apple doesn't support running 10.4.x on such a configuration. Why would you expect EMC to support it? Have you tried on a supported configuration? I've never seen this issue on our Xserve G5. Russ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nxnw Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 1. As you can see, I am not the only one with the identical problem; 2. I believe that you have misstated Apple's position on upgrade cards. My understanding is that OS X is not supported on a system that been brought up to processor requirements (i.e., at least a G3) with an upgrade card and, indeed, it will not install on such a system. 3. In fact, neither the system or any of the several programs and processes running on it, 24/7, has crashed even once in over three years - except retrospect, which crashes regularly with the error indicated above. Sonnet states that it has tested the upgrade card for compatibility: macosx104_update.html . My experience with this otherwise absolutely rock stable system supports sonnets claim and refutes your apologia. And, yes, I do expect retrospect to be supported in a machine that has been properly upgraded with a quality G4 card from a reputable manufacturer. 4. The problem certainly appears to be a bug and, as noted, not the first I have suffered since 4.0. 5. One hallmark of a good developer is that it will monitor its hosted forums with an active interest in improving its product. On the other hand, the requirement that customers pay for the privilege of reporting a defect — an obstacle to bug reporting — suggests less interest in receiving bug reports than seems appropriate for a product that has to be reliable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 > The problem certainly appears to be a bug... Unless you can provide steps to reproduce the behavior on a clean test bed there's nothing for an engineer to go on. > and, as noted, not the first I have suffered since 4.0. I don't see anywhere else you've noted anything, or what issues you might have had with versions 4.1 or 4.3. > I do expect retrospect to be supported in a machine that has been properly upgraded with a > quality G4 card from a reputable manufacturer. And I expect my 1964 1/2 Mustang to run well on regular unleadded. But it doesn't. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennart_T Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 Quote: 2. I believe that you have misstated Apple's position on upgrade cards. No, Russ is right. "Processor upgrade cards are not supported." See: http://www.apple.com/macosx/techspecs/ "Mac OS X does not support processor upgrade cards." See: http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/requirements.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robsedor Posted April 13, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 13, 2007 I received another retro.icons error and crash-- the first since Sept. 06. The server is running 10.4.9 on a G5 dual-core 2 ghz with 2 gb of ECC RAM-- no processor upgrade card here. I was able to force quit retrospect and a ran a backup without a reboot. Robert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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