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Retrospect client turns itself off all the time


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I'm running Retrospect client 6.1.107 on my Intel Mac (Tiger 10.4.10) and it gets backed up by Retrospect Server running on a Tiger server (G5). It works great but I notice that my client sets itself to "off" all the time. When I run it and manually click it to "on", it gets backed up, but a couple of days later it'll magically be "off" again. It's living in my Applications folder. What can I do to make it stay on??

 

Mike Levin

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Michael,

 

Quote:

I'm running Retrospect client 6.1.107

 


(1) That's a very old Retrospect client - current one is Retrospect Client 6.1.130, and is available here:

Retrospect Mac updates

but I don't think that is your problem; simply FYI.

 

Quote:

It's living in my Applications folder.

 


(2) Have you renamed it? Could you please do the following command in Terminal:

Code:


rhwimac:~ rhwalker$ locate pitond

Show us your results. You should see something like:

Code:


rhwimac:~ rhwalker$ locate pitond

/Applications/Retrospect Client.app/Contents/Resources/pitond

rhwimac:~ rhwalker$


(3) Between these times when the Client is on and later seems to turn off, has there been a restart or reboot of the client computer? Has the client computer gone to sleep? Is this a "wired" or "wireless" connection from the client computer to the Retrospect machine?

 

(4) When the client appears to be in this "off" state, and before you try to turn it back on, could you please execute the following line in Terminal (before doing so, open the screen window up wide) and provide (paste) the results:

Code:


ps axlwww | fgrep pitond

(that's a "pipe" symbol - a shift "\" - before the fgrep - easiest way is to paste that line into Terminal)

You should see something like this if it is running:

Code:


rhwimac:~ rhwalker$ ps axlwww | fgrep pitond

0 188 1 0 31 0 30848 904 - S ?? 0:25.65 /Applications/Retrospect Client.app/Contents/Resources/pitond

501 490 479 0 31 0 18052 248 - S+ p1 0:00.01 fgrep pitond

rhwimac:~ rhwalker$


(5) Could you execute the following line in Terminal and paste the results, please:

Code:


ls -ald /Library/StartupItems/Retro*

You should see something like this:

Code:


rhwimac:~ rhwalker$ ls -ald /Library/StartupItems/Retro*

drwxr-xr-x 4 root wheel 136 Jul 3 2005 /Library/StartupItems/RetroClient

rhwimac:~ rhwalker$


(6) Could you execute the following line in Terminal and paste the results, please:

Code:


cat /Library/StartupItems/Retro*

You shoudl see something like this:

Code:


rhwimac:/Library/StartupItems/RetroClient rhwalker$ cat RetroClient

#!/bin/sh

 

##

# Start Retroclient (pitond) daemon

#

# please make sure this is saved with unix line endings

##

 

. /etc/rc.common

 

if [ -f "/Library/Preferences/retroclient.state" ] && [ -d "/Applications/Retrospect Client.app" ]; then

ConsoleMessage "Starting Retrospect Client"

/Applications/Retrospect\ Client.app/Contents/Resources/pitond &

fi

rhwimac:/Library/StartupItems/RetroClient rhwalker$


That should give us enough to chew on for a while. I assume that you have seen these related threads:

Retrospect client turns itself off

Retrospect client turns itself off

 

and have eliminated the various possibilities suggested in those threads? Have you seen this KnowledgeBase article and followed the steps there:

Retrospect Client turns itself off on restart

 

Sometimes posters never post back when the problem is solved, so we never know whether the problem was resolved or whether further investigation is needed.

 

Russ

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Hi, and thank you for trying to help me!

 

Quote:

Michael,

 

(1) That's a very old Retrospect client - current one is Retrospect Client 6.1.130, and is available here:

but I don't think that is your problem; simply FYI.

 

great thanks - I'll update.

 

 

(2) Have you renamed it? Could you please do the following command in Terminal:

Code:

rhwimac:~ rhwalker$ locate pitond

Show us your results.

 

I see this:

 

/Applications/Retrospect Client.app/Contents/Resources/pitond

/Volumes/External FW drive for Tiger desktop Mac/Main Internal Drive (Tiger)/Applications/Retrospect Client.app/Contents/Resources/pitond

/Volumes/RAID1 drives/Applications/Retrospect Client.app/Contents/Resources/pitond

 

(3) Between these times when the Client is on and later seems to turn off, has there been a restart or reboot of the client computer? Has the client computer gone to sleep? Is this a "wired" or "wireless" connection from the client computer to the Retrospect machine?

 

it has not gone to sleep. It is a wired connection (Ethernet) for both the client and the server, and the client machine is a desktop Intel Mac that never gets turned off (and only rebooted after the Apple Updates).

 

 

(4) When the client appears to be in this "off" state, and before you try to turn it back on, could you please execute the following line in Terminal (before doing so, open the screen window up wide) and provide (paste) the results:

Code:

ps axlwww | fgrep pitond

 

will do, the next time it turns off.

 

 

(5) Could you execute the following line in Terminal and paste the results, please:

Code:

ls -ald /Library/StartupItems/Retro*

 

I see:

 

drwxr-xr-x 4 root wheel 136 Aug 14 12:34 /Library/StartupItems/RetroClient

drwxr-xr-x 4 root wheel 136 Jun 21 12:39 /Library/StartupItems/RetroRun

 

 

(6) Could you execute the following line in Terminal and paste the results, please:

Code:

cat /Library/StartupItems/Retro*

 

I tried it but both are directories, and the directories contain files that aren't shell scripts but rather seem like executables (when I cat them, I see a bunch of the ^@ symbols indicative of non-ASCII files).

 

 

That should give us enough to chew on for a while. I assume that you have seen these related threads:

 

I'll re-read the first one; the second link came up with "we cannot proceed" screen.

 

and have eliminated the various possibilities suggested in those threads? Have you seen this KnowledgeBase article and followed the steps there:

 

not yet - will do so now.

 

Russ

 


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Quote:

I see this:

 

/Applications/Retrospect Client.app/Contents/Resources/pitond

/Volumes/External FW drive for Tiger desktop Mac/Main Internal Drive (Tiger)/Applications/Retrospect Client.app/Contents/Resources/pitond

/Volumes/RAID1 drives/Applications/Retrospect Client.app/Contents/Resources/pitond

 


Ok, you have three copies of Retrospect Client floating around. You should have seen only what I reported as the example ("/Applications/Retrospect Client.app/Contents/Resources/pitond"). Because I don't know your setup, it's unclear how these extra ones materialized. If you happen, by some odd means, to be launching any Retrospect Client other than the one in /Applications to "turn it on", that's the cause of your problems.

 

Also, you may not be aware of it, but Mac OS X can have multiple "Applications" folders, including one in your home folder. I'm not sure which one is being launched in your situation.

 

Quote:

the client machine is a desktop Intel Mac that never gets turned off (and only rebooted after the Apple Updates).

 


Apple has been doing a lot of updates recently. By chance, have these updates / reboots happened between when you turned the client on (started pitond) and when you noticed it off? The point of this whole exercise was to help us understand whether the problem was that the client wasn't getting autostarted on reboot, or whether, in fact, it was properly autostarting from the proper place (/Applications) and then dying for some odd reason.

 

Quote:

Quote:

(5) Could you execute the following line in Terminal and paste the results, please:

Code:

 

ls -ald /Library/StartupItems/Retro*

 

 


I see:

 

drwxr-xr-x 4 root wheel 136 Aug 14 12:34 /Library/StartupItems/RetroClient

drwxr-xr-x 4 root wheel 136 Jun 21 12:39 /Library/StartupItems/RetroRun

 

 


Ah.... very interesting. Looks like this "client" machine had the Retrospect program (not just the client) installed at one time. The RetroRun folder should not be there, and is what Retrospect, rather than Retrospect Client, needs to start up.

 

Did you have Retrospect (not just the client) installed at one time on this machine? Is it still installed? If not, how did you uninstall it? We may want to delete the RetroRun autostart stuff and investigate further.

 

Quote:

Quote:

(6) Could you execute the following line in Terminal and paste the results, please:

Code:

 

cat /Library/StartupItems/Retro*

 

 


I tried it but both are directories, and the directories contain files that aren't shell scripts but rather seem like executables (when I cat them, I see a bunch of the ^@ symbols indicative of non-ASCII files).

 


Sorry, my command had a typo. Should have been (as could have been inferred from the output I posted, which showed the directory in which I typed a similar command):

Code:


cat /Library/StartupItems/RetroClient/RetroClient

 

Quote:

the second link came up with "we cannot proceed" screen.

 


Interesting. It worked yesterday when I tried. Here's that second link in a different form that doesn't show all of the pages (you will have to link forward through all pages by the "Next" link):

Retrospect Client turns itself off - earlier thread

 

Let us know what you find.

 

Russ

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Quote:

Ok, you have three copies of Retrospect Client floating around. You should have seen only what I reported as the example ("/Applications/Retrospect Client.app/Contents/Resources/pitond"). Because I don't know your setup, it's unclear how these extra ones materialized. If you happen, by some odd means, to be launching any Retrospect Client other than the one in /Applications to "turn it on", that's the cause of your problems.

 


 

the other two copies are located on backup disks - I have two local volumes (external firewire hard drives which get cloned from the main internal drive every night as another form of backup).

 

Quote:

Also, you may not be aware of it, but Mac OS X can have multiple "Applications" folders, including one in your home folder. I'm not sure which one is being launched in your situation.

 


 

yeah; where's the code that launches it? I'd assume we get to specify an exact path (including volume name) for the run line?

 

Quote:

Apple has been doing a lot of updates recently. By chance, have these updates / reboots happened between when you turned the client on (started pitond) and when you noticed it off? The point of this whole exercise was to help us understand whether the problem was that the client wasn't getting autostarted on reboot, or whether, in fact, it was properly autostarting from the proper place (/Applications) and then dying for some odd reason.

 


 

I don't think so. It turns off more often than the reboots for sure.

 

Quote:

 

Ah.... very interesting. Looks like this "client" machine had the Retrospect program (not just the client) installed at one time. The RetroRun folder should not be there, and is what Retrospect, rather than Retrospect Client, needs to start up.

Did you have Retrospect (not just the client) installed at one time on this machine? Is it still installed? If not, how did you uninstall it? We may want to delete the RetroRun autostart stuff and investigate further.

 


 

yes, it is installed right now, since I use it occasionally to make backups to cartridges to be stored off-site (yes, I'm very paranoid about backups! :-) Is it not possible to keep both the Retrospect program and the client on one machine??

 

Quote:

Code:

cat /Library/StartupItems/RetroClient/RetroClient

 


 

#!/bin/sh

 

##

# Start Retroclient (pitond) daemon

#

# please make sure this is saved with unix line endings

##

 

. /etc/rc.common

 

if [ -f "/Library/Preferences/retroclient.state" ] && [ -d "/Applications/Retrospect Client.app" ]; then

ConsoleMessage "Starting Retrospect Client"

/Applications/Retrospect\ Client.app/Contents/Resources/pitond &

fi

 

since it runs pitond off /Applications, shouldn't it always get the correct one (the one on the boot volume)?

 

Thanks,

 

Mike

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Quote:

yeah; where's the code that launches it?

 


/Library/StartupItems/RetroClient/RetroClient

 

Quote:

I'd assume we get to specify an exact path (including volume name) for the run line?

 


Yes, see your output from the "cat" of that file. But only for the client, not for Retrospect itself (because RetroRun is not a shell script).

 

Quote:

since it runs pitond off /Applications, shouldn't it always get the correct one (the one on the boot volume)?

 


Yes, it should.

 

Do you see anything in your console log about Rosetta crashing?

 

Russ

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Quote:

Do you see anything in your console log about Rosetta crashing?

 


 

nope, although I can't seem to see any messages from before today, so I'm not sure I'm searching everything (I've done "Reload" and its still just full of a million warnings from Acrobat from today).

 

Mike

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Quote:

Quote:

it not possible to keep both the Retrospect program and the client on one machine??

 


 

Yes, it is possible and perfectly fine; neither application will interact with the other.

 

Dave

 


 

ok. From your previous question ("Ah.... very interesting. Looks like this "client" machine had the Retrospect program (not just the client) installed at one time. The RetroRun folder should not be there, and is what Retrospect, rather than Retrospect Client, needs to start up.") I thought it might be a problem. I definitely do have them both on here.

 

Thanks,

 

Mike

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Quote:

It works great but I notice that my client sets itself to "off" all the time.

 


 

I think you guys are getting a little ahead of yourselves here.

 

The first question to be answered (which I find myself asking over and over again here) is, what text is displayed in the Status field of the Retrospect Client application?

 

 

Hugs,

 

Dave

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I've seen this happen to my client, too, and I haven't figured out why. It's dangerous if you're counting on that nightly backup and there's no notification from the client or the server that backups aren't happening (unless you have time to read through the log every day).

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  • 4 months later...

> The first question to be answered (which I find myself asking over and over

> again here) is, what text is displayed in the Status field of the Retrospect Client application?

 

The "Status" field of the Retrospect Client application says "Not running". When I did "ps axl | grep pitond" from the Terminal, there was no output (pitond doesn't seem to be active). What does this mean??

 

Mike

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