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Retrospect always is a bad citizen


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So on my Mac Retrospect is nearly always a bad citizen in so far as it constantly locks up and when it does lock up the only way to shut it down is to hold the power button down and corrupt spotlight et al the process. It's disturbing to me how often this happens and how often Retrospect either hangs or refuses to quit/exit.

 

Right now I do a ps and it shows RetroRun running but there's not Respect despite my Force Quit applications panel showing an entry "Retrospect (not responding)"

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So you've got some troubleshooting to do.

 

Needless to say, most people aren't experiencing the trouble you are having, so something is at fault with your setup. Could be Retrospect (corrupt Retro.Config file; possibly a corrupt copy of the app.) Could be the hardware where your destination backup set is stored. Could be a corrupt filesystem on your boot volume or something amiss with the OS software. Could be a lot of things.

 

To help us help you, please tell us the details about your system hardware, OS, Retrospect version and any installed RDU, type(s) of backup sets, when the problem occurs (after performing a backup, upon launch of the app, etc.), etc. Also tell us whether there may be any other odd things going on with other applications, etc.

 

You may have told us before in one of your many posts, but please tell us again. Thanks.

 

 

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Here's what I can tell you. I have two backup volumes, two backup sets and I'm writing to both nightly. i need to separate the schedule as they are still overlapping which is why I see the "catalog is locked" error from time to time but that doesn't explain the lock up that i see when I try to quit the Retrospect.app.

 

I'm on a MacBook Pro with 10.5.7, Retrospect 6.1.230 and I have a OWC Voyager Q drive dock hanging off my FW800 port and off it I have a G-Tech mini drive. I have a 5.25 Samsung drive plugged into the Voyager Q drive dock. Each device has it's own File BackupSet.

 

I realize that this is a relatively primative solution but I believe it should work.

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i need to separate the schedule as they are still overlapping which is why I see the "catalog is locked" error from time to time

Retrospect should be able to handle overlapping scheduled backups just fine, without generating a "catalog locked" error. The backups will run in sequential order.

 

The "catalog is locked" error can be caused by the dual autolaunch bug that, to my knowledge, hasn't been resolved. Your recent post "Retrospect 6.x won't die" says you have seen two Retrospect processes running, which indicates that you have indeed experienced this bug. You might try recreating retrorunfile to see if that helps. (Quit Retrospect; go to /Library/Preferences/Retrospect and drag retrorunfile to the trash; relaunch Retrospect, and then quit it again.) The only sure cure for the double autolaunch bug, though, is to manually launch Retrospect before your script is scheduled to run.

 

I'm on a MacBook Pro with 10.5.7, Retrospect 6.1.230 and I have a OWC Voyager Q drive dock hanging off my FW800 port and off it I have a G-Tech mini drive. I have a 5.25 Samsung drive plugged into the Voyager Q drive dock. Each device has it's own File BackupSet.

Which volumes are the sources, and on which volume(s) do the File backup sets reside?

 

A couple of suggestions in the meantime regarding your lockup issues:

 

You might try running Disk Utility to see if there are any problems with the filesystems on any of these volumes.

 

You could also try running Retrospect with a clean configuration. With Retrospect not running, go to /Library/Preferences/Retrospect and drag the file "Retro.Config" to the desktop. Relaunch Retrospect (you'll need to re-enter your License Code). All your scripts and lists will be gone, so you'll need to recreate enough from scratch to be able to perform your tests. You'll also need to tell Retrospect where your backup sets are located; it's probably easiest to navigate to them and open them in Finder. If this solves your problem, your old Retro.Config was likely corrupt.

 

We have experienced problems with Retro.Config from time to time that have caused all kinds of erratic behavior. Because this file contains all your scripts, lists, custom selectors, etc., it's a good idea to back this file up regularly so you can revert to a known good copy in the event of trouble.

 

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