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Retrospect constantly doing basically a "full" backup every time.


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I'm getting extremely annoyed at Retrospect with some behavior that I can't account for.

 

 

 

It's transitory, and chewing through backup tapes like there's no tomorrow.

 

 

 

On some of the computers I back up, it seems to be doing a full backup every time the computer is scheduled to be backed up. I'm watching it do last night's backup (It crashed with an assertation error, which I didn't see until I came in this morning), and it decided it had to back up 3.6G of information on one of our office staff's computer. I'm watching things go by like "Power Mac G4 Setup.mov" and other things like that I cannot believe had changed since last Wednesday. Office ClipArt and other things like that are getting backed up week after week.

 

 

 

I thought that Retrospect was supposed to be doing incremental backups. So why is it grabbing dang near every file again? It's chewing through 20GB DDS-4 backup tapes ungodly fast. They barely last a month, which is maybe 2 cycles for them. (We have 3 sets -> A, B, and C weeks).

 

 

 

Has anyone seen behavior like this, and might know how to fix it? I've looked through the forums but haven't found anything.

 

 

 

And on a unrelated side note: can the forum admins please make a "lite" version of this page? The excessive little moving icons and such are annoying to begin with, but have crashed my browser a time or two while trying to write this post, and use up all my cpu time anyways to display (Mozilla 1.4 on Red Hat 9). Just a request.

 

 

 

Thanks,

 

Dario

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Just an update....last night's backu is still running, and it just asked for a new tape. I just gave it a new tape on Tuesday to finish Monday night's backup. So it's essentially used an entire DDS-4 tape in 2 days. I haven't told Retrospect to do a new media or recycle media backup, and haven't changed any settings that I know of for it not to be doing incremental backups.

 

Somebody please help me!

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Quote:

On some of the computers I back up, it seems to be doing a full backup every time the computer is scheduled to be backed up. I'm watching it do last night's backup (It crashed with an assertation error, which I didn't see until I came in this morning), and it decided it had to back up 3.6G of information on one of our office staff's computer

 


 

Perhaps you'd like to share with the Forum some specifics of your setup and configuration?

 

- You know, like the version of Mac OS X you're using?

- And perhaps the version of Retrospect?

- How about some information pertaining to the office staff's computer?

--What OS is it running?

---Is it running the Retrospect Client software?

----If so, what version?

-----If not, how are you accessing it?

 

Dave

 

(who continues to be amazed that folks post questions without even the most basic description of the specifics involved...)

 

 

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Guest psykoyiko

Quote:

kuoirad said:

And on a unrelated side note: can the forum admins please make a "lite" version of this page? The excessive little moving icons and such are annoying to begin with, but have crashed my browser a time or two while trying to write this post, and use up all my cpu time anyways to display (Mozilla 1.4 on Red Hat 9). Just a request.

 

 


 

If you're using mozilla, why not just configure it to block images from this site?

Also, I suggest you try Mozilla Firebird, it's not quite as much of a hog.

 

 

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Yes, I've seen this behavior in my setup: MacOS X hosting Retrospect 5.0 server and an increasing number of Windows clients and decreasing number of Mac clients. I've reverted to backing up a target folder only rather than the entire HD. I hope this helps.

 

Let us know if you find a solution.

 

 

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I'm having similar problems, while using Retrospect 5.0.238 on a Mac with OS 10.2.6 in a stand alone (non-networked) environment. My date and time are set via an internet clock. Typically I run Norton to check for corrupted file dates before making incremental back-ups to a DVD storage set. I have a 75 Gb. drive of picture files only and Retrospect is trying to back nearly 50% of the files, although a much smaller % have been revised. I thought I could circumvent this problem by building a new Storage set file, but something strange is going on there too- Starting a clean rebuild, disk one is fine, disk two is file and then on disk three, the catalog just keeps going... without changing the disk it ran for 3 days and supposedly recataloged 150GB of data (wow, now that's compression!), before I aborted.

 

Any suggestions are greatly welcomed. Thanks in advance.

 

 

Douglas

 

 

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Typically I run Norton to check for corrupted file dates before making incremental back-ups to a DVD storage set.

 


 

Does Norton _change_ any dates before you run the backup?

 

Have you considered the (likely) possibility that Norton is _causing_ this problem, instead of being a preventative measure?

 

David

(who didn't trust Norton software under OS 6, 7, 8 or 9, and doesn't today...)

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Does Norton _change_ any dates before you run the backup?

 

Yes, some time, but not many and not often.

 

Have you considered the (likely) possibility that Norton is _causing_ this problem, instead of being a preventative measure?

 

I considered that and didn't run Norton the last time (meaning no Norton the next time i ran Retrospect after having made a successful complete back-up). I still had the problem. I suspect that the problem is in fact date related. My system appears to be stable (no other problems), but I've just recently begun to notice currnet file dates on files that I haven't recently accessed, which would cause Retrospect to include them in the next back-up. Out of 70 Gb , Retrospect currently wants to back-up 30Gb. I'm guessing I've done about 10 Gb. of work.

 

Thanks in advance for your time.

 

Douglas

 

 

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Quote:

My system appears to be stable (no other problems), but I've just recently begun to notice currnet file dates on files that I haven't recently accessed, which would cause Retrospect to include them in the next back-up.

 


 

Some applications update the date on every file they touch, unrelated to whether you actually make any changes. (As an example, Outlook Express on Windows touches every single "folder" file every single time it launches. On the Mac, QuickView touches every single help file every time you launch it.)

 

Check the date on a particular file, and then view it in your "main" application. Quit. Did the date change?

 

Do you post-process the files? (Like PDF, or color separate, or rip, or whatever it is you do with graphics!) Does this touch the date?

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