stephaneh Posted March 3, 2003 Report Share Posted March 3, 2003 I am using 5.0.238 on os x 10.2.4. all the scripts run fine, but there is no automated backups running at all. If I launch the app manually, then if a backup was missed, it asks to perform it immediately. I also would like to say that, although the product is of high quality, the support for it is the worst I have ever seen in the industry. I have paid a fair amount for this software, and it has worked fine for me for years, but I have had this problem for months now, and the total lack of support besides this forum is simply amazing for such an expensive product. This forum doesn't even send me an email when someone responds, which means I have to monitor it if I want to see responses. It's like being on hold for days for support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted March 3, 2003 Report Share Posted March 3, 2003 Actually Dantz has great support, including 30 days of free support. For more info on our support options visit: http://www.dantz.com/support/support_options.html This forum can also email you replies to your posts by clicking on the finger icon below your message. You can also configure your settings for a daily email digest of all posts. Our Knowlegebase also contains helpful information about the problem you are reporing under the keyword of autolaunch: http://www.dantz.com/index.php3?SCREEN=kbase&ACTION=KBASE&id=27803 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stephaneh Posted March 3, 2003 Author Report Share Posted March 3, 2003 thanks for the help. It seems to be working again, after disabling the notifications and re-enabling them. regarding the support, from what I gather, it's probably great, but it's not accessible to users beyond 30 days of purchase. I have been upgrading my software since 3.x at least (I can't remember exactly) and I feel like I have sunk quite a bit of money into this software. It's been all I needed it to be. But for the amount of money spent, at least an email support service would be a minimum to offer for paying customers. this forum seems to do the trick, but it's a lot more painful for customers than a couple of emails. My cost in time is considerably higher than it would have been using emails. and I would have had a solution to my problem months ago. As a customer with a problem, I don't want to learn how to use a custom forum, I want to be able to ask a question and get an answer as fast as possible, without having to monitor anything but my inbox. I'm sure you guys are not going to change the way you work because of my feedback, and I will still recommend your software to anyone who needs backups (as I have many many times in the past). But I'm disappointed in this aspect of your product and I wanted to let you guys know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisleonard Posted March 7, 2003 Report Share Posted March 7, 2003 Autolaunching is highly erratic on my system as well. 10.2.4 OS X Server; Retrospect 5.0.238. My script tries to run as soon as I manually run retrospect after logging in from the server console. It worked 50% of the time 2 months ago and now it hasn't autolaunched for the last month. I have followed the instructions from the faq twice and this has not fixed the problem. Perhaps this is related to retrorun still launching at boot up? That is, after disabling notification and restarting the computer, the retrorun process is still there when I log in and check processes. Should I kill it before reconfiguring? Finally, about the tech support... It may be great, but at $70 an incident after 30 days to get what appears to be buggy software running is a major rip off. I, like many others, will seek an alternative unless Dantz steps-up and insures their software works as advertised. 30 days of free support is just not long enough to insure their software is working and reliable. Especially after a major OS change which broke everything. -Chris leonard Professor New York Medical College Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted March 7, 2003 Report Share Posted March 7, 2003 Quote: after disabling notification and restarting the computer, the retrorun process is still there when I log in and check processes. Should I kill it before reconfiguring? retrorun is the unix daemon that's responsible for auto-launching Retrospect, and it's present no matter how you configure the application's preferences. One limitation of retrorun seems to be that it can't launch Retrospect unless the program had quit cleanly the last time it ran. In other words, if Retrospect crashes (and logs a crash in /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/Retrospect.crash.log) then it won't auto-launch again until the program has been manually restarted in between. After you log into the machine but _before_ you double-click on Retrospect, make a copy of the Retrospect Operations Log (in /Library/Preferences/Retrospect/) and open it with a text editor. Check to see when the program was last launch and quit. Check the Retrospect.crash.log and see if its reporting any crashes. If it is, then that will explain the failure to auto-launch. Diagnosing an OSX crash will require complete hardware/software information... Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisleonard Posted March 7, 2003 Report Share Posted March 7, 2003 Dave, Thanks for your response. Quote: retrorun is the unix daemon that's responsible for auto-launching Retrospect, and it's present no matter how you configure the application's preferences. Hmmm... l the faq I was referring to claims that by changing the prefs retrorun will not load at atart up: If the script is written correctly, then try the following: see http://www.dantz.com/index.php3?SCREEN=kbase&ACTION=KBASE&id=27803 Am I missing something here? Quote: One limitation of retrorun seems to be that it can't launch Retrospect unless the program had quit cleanly the last time it ran. In other words, if Retrospect crashes (and logs a crash in /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/Retrospect.crash.log) then it won't auto-launch again until the program has been manually restarted in between. Interestingly, there is no Retrospect.crash.log anywhere Quote: After you log into the machine but _before_ you double-click on Retrospect, make a copy of the Retrospect Operations Log (in /Library/Preferences/Retrospect/) and open it with a text editor. Check to see when the program was last launch and quit. Done. All the logged openings and quits seemed to occur properly. For example: ? $[31]Retrospect$[32] version 5.0.238 launched at 3/5/2003 6:00 PM + Retrospect Driver Update, version 3.1.105 Quit at 3/5/2003 6:07 PM ? $[31]Retrospect$[32] version 5.0.238 launched at 3/7/2003 12:08 PM + Retrospect Driver Update, version 3.1.105 Quit at 3/7/2003 12:12 PM retrospect was scheduled to do a back up on 3/6/2003 at 10pm. It didn't happen and when I logged in on 3/7 it began counting down to launch the script that never ran. Any suggestions? Thanks, -Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted March 7, 2003 Report Share Posted March 7, 2003 Quote: when I logged in on 3/7 it began counting down to launch the script that never ran. Was the Macintosh sleeping before you logged it in? Time for some specific information regarding your setup! Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisleonard Posted March 8, 2003 Report Share Posted March 8, 2003 Oops I think I miss wrote. I didn't mean that Retropect started counting down to launch the script when I "logged in" as a user to the OS X server. I meant that it started to count down to once I ran retrospect after I had logged in to OS X on 3/7. The computer is a duel 500MHz G4 running OS 10.2.4 Server. There are 2 disks with the boot disk having all the aplications on it. both are formated in HFS+. The 10.2 server was installed over an OS 10.1 installation. The system and disks are set to never sleep but the monitor sleeps after 10Mins. The script remotely mounts another OS10.2.4 machine (Duel 1.0 gig G4s) and incrementally backs up 1 user directory to a Echo FW30 ADR tape drive. The process works correctly manually. The script runs when I run retrospect manually and sometimes it runs automatically (set to back up every Thursday at 10pm). This is the only script present since I wanted to get this working before I developed back up schemes for several other lab machines (PCs and Macs) Any other info relevant? Thanks again for your help. Any suggestions welcome. -Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisleonard Posted March 11, 2003 Report Share Posted March 11, 2003 Once again Retrospect has failed to autolaunch. It was scheduled to launch on Fri and it didn't. I checked for crash logs and there were none. Upon launching Retrospect Tuesday (today) the script started counting down to run. Unfortunatly, it is not practical to run the script while I am working on the machine is supposed to back up. So, it appears that the only way I can get Retrospect to auto launch is if I stay logged on to the server from the console. Could this be a privledges issue? Does anyone know if it is possible to launch Retrospect from a remote terminal login? That way I might be able to connect remotely and stay logged off from the server console. I'm open to other suggestions. Thanks -Chris Leonard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted March 27, 2003 Report Share Posted March 27, 2003 Quote: Once again Retrospect has failed to autolaunch. It was scheduled to launch on Fri and it didn't. I checked for crash logs and there were none. Upon launching Retrospect Tuesday (today) the script started counting down to run. Some questions regarding the log entries for the above noted experiences: - Did Retrospect successfully auto-launch before the Friday noted above? - Were there any errors logged in Retrospect during the previous successful auto-launch? - When you manually launched Retrospect on the Tuesday noted above, did the log reflect that accurately? So, it appears that the only way I can get Retrospect to auto launch is if I stay logged on to the server from the console. Could this be a privledges issue? I don't know why auto-launching might be failing for you. On my machines it works reliably (most of the time). -Have you deleted the /Library/StatupItems/Retrospect/RetroRun/ directory and allowed the version of Retrospect you use to repopulate it? -Have you done a clean install of 5.0.238, trashing your existing application before running the installer? -Are you making sure not to move the Retrospect application after it's been run (the retrorun process will only work if the path to the original is intact). Does anyone know if it is possible to launch Retrospect from a remote terminal login? That way I might be able to connect remotely and stay logged off from the server console. No, Retrospect is a Carbon application, and needs the Finder to run. That's got to be number one on my OS X Only wish list; make it a unix process with a program to manage (the way Apple has done with its Server management tools). So I could connect to and configure from any machine on the 'net. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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