JohnJ Posted December 6, 2006 Report Share Posted December 6, 2006 Hi all, We are new Retrospect Multi-server users and use it to backup selected directories on Macintosh and Wintel PC's. We are seeing the error message below show up frequently on the Mac's but have not seen it for the Wintel platforms. Can anyone help us understand what is causing this message to be issued? Thanks 12/5/2006 3:40:50 PM: Comparing Documents on sportzm1 File "Macintosh:Users:sportz:Documents:Microsoft User Data:Office 2004 Identities:Main Identity:Database": didn't compare 12/5/2006 3:40:56 PM: 1 execution errors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhwalker Posted December 6, 2006 Report Share Posted December 6, 2006 Was that computer in use? Sounds like the file changed during the backup prior to the compare. Your log indicates that the backup was taken at 3:40 PM, which is during the workday. Perhaps someone was using the computer while the backup was happening. I see other files changing (log files, etc.) on our Macintosh clients, but have never seen this particular message. All of our Macintosh clients are logged out (at the login screen) at the time our backups are done. What was the situation here? Russ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnJ Posted December 6, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 6, 2006 Thanks for the reply Russ. It is likely that the computer was in use but that is the case with almost all of them and we only see this message sporadically. It is possible that the file is in use because Entourage uses it but I think a different message is displayed for files that are in use - no? We are using Proactive backup and almost invariably the backups run during the business day because these are primarily laptops that go home with the users at night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhwalker Posted December 6, 2006 Report Share Posted December 6, 2006 Quote: I think a different message is displayed for files that are in use - no? There are many possible errors. I didn't say that the file was in use, but that it changed. If Retrospect client is able to open the file for reading, then it will back it up. If a Mac client's program has a file open for exclusive access as some programs do in their open(), then you will get an error that the file can't be read. Other possibilities are that the file can't be found (was deleted between backup and compare), that the date/time changed (perhaps the data is the same but metadata changed), or that a compare error occurred (as it did in your case). It's common for things like log files, etc., to be changing in the background and, if a computer is in use, like this one is, it's common for other files to be changing as well. I question whether a good backup can be made of a machine that's in use because some files need to be backed up as a set (e.g., email databases). For example, on our Xserve, we have a script to stop the mail service so that the Cyrus email database can be backed up in a consistent state. Unless you get a consistent state, you will have guaranteed email database corruption. Outlook can have similar issues. There's a discussion in a different context in this thread here: Is a duplicate an exact duplicate? Russ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennart_T Posted December 7, 2006 Report Share Posted December 7, 2006 Quote: 12/5/2006 3:40:50 PM: Comparing Documents on sportzm1 File "Macintosh:Users:sportz:Documents:Microsoft User Data:Office 2004 Identities:Main Identity:Database": didn't compare 12/5/2006 3:40:56 PM: 1 execution errors That simply means that Entourage was running and either sent or received a message some time between the backup started and the backup compared the file. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnJ Posted December 8, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 8, 2006 Thanks Lennart. One remaining question: so is it safe to assume then that the backup did occur successfully and it is only the compare that generated the message? (This assumes that the message(s) that were either sent or received were not included in the backup.) Thanks again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennart_T Posted December 8, 2006 Report Share Posted December 8, 2006 Yes, I think it is safe that the backup did occur. To be sure, you can restore it and try it in Entourage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnJ Posted December 11, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 11, 2006 Thank yoiu Lennart. We will be doing some testing this week to confirm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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