DataCare 9.0A (110324) was working most of the time up until Sept 15. Now every night when it runs on schedule, it creates 2 back up files instead of one. DCB1865.ZIP & DCB1865.Z01. I cannot open or use either file. I've tried repeating the back up many times but it keeps doing the same thing. I have confirmed that there are no other processes running while the back up is running. I shut the computer down and restarted, but still have the same result. I tried it from another workstation and it worked successfully. Not sure what the problem could be. I guess I'll have to run DataCare from the other workstation since I can't get it to work anymore from this one. Very frustrating that DataCare reports a "success" regardless of whether it's actually a success. It has to be manually checked every day or you might think you're getting back ups when you're not.

Hello Susan,

How big are the two *.z?? files, and how big is the dataset you are trying to back up? Also, how much free space exists on the target drive for the backup, the drive with your Adagio data, and the local C:\WINDOWS\TEMP drive?

I understand the frustration. This might take some time to track down.

When the back up was working successfully, the .zip files were consistently around 280,000 KB. Last night the unsuccessful .zip is 178,000 KB and the .Z01 is 103,325 KB. The night before the unsuccessful .zip was 234,000 KB and the .Z01 was 46,000 KB. Every night they are different but the 2 files add up to around 280,000 KB.

The data we are backing up is 2.83 GB.

The drive where the back ups are located has 104 GB used and 44 GB available.

The drive where Adagio is located has 177 GB used and 70 GB available.

C:\Windows\Temp has 2.92 GB in it.

The .Z01 (and .Z02, .ZA03 ...) files are created by the zip program when it senses that the backup would result in a file that is larger than the largest file that can be stored using the file system on the target drive.

If you are backing up to a regular hard drive using the NTFS file system, this is about 4 gb.

If you backing up to some other device, like a USB "stick," it may be much smaller.

Try redirecting the backup to a different device if you wish to avoid this.

WinZip should be able to deal with the multiple files, just open the .ZIP file and it will read the other files as needed, provided you keep them together in the same folder. (You will notice that .ZIP file time is slightly later than the other files; it was created last and contains the listing of the other files.)

The drive we are backing up to is NTFS and since the .zip file is only around 1/4 GB, reaching the maximum size of 4 GB shouldn't be an issue. We are backing up to the local computer C: drive in a folder called backup. Not using a USB stick or any other external type of memory. No luck opening the .zip file.

I deleted the Windows/Temp contents and some of the old back ups in C:\backup and the result was a successful back up last night. I only wish that DataCare would report the failures because otherwise I have to check this EVERY DAY to see if it was really successful.

I have this happening in many clients that have .zip files between 150MB and 600MB. It doesn't happen all the time but we cannot rely on that backup anymore. It doesn't happen with the Toolkit backup. Is Datacare and Toolkit creating the .zip files with the same tool?

I do not see why this is a problem. Even if the ZIP program splits the backup into multiple files, it can still unzip (restore) any or all of them. Just use WinZip (or similar utility) to open the .ZIP file and it will find the files in the other files.

Ralph:

You are assuming that DataCare intentionally split the file using WinZoip standard.In this case it is a failure of DataCare to complete the zip file creation (leaving the temp file).

No luck opening those .zip files.

Adagio products don't split zip files, but the ZIP component that we're using may react adversely to certain scenarios. Likely, that component is not telling Adagio there is a problem. The Toolkit uses the same technology, so it's not a case of one working and the other not.

I think it's related to one or more of these conditions: very large datasets, networked data, interfering applications and the free space where the 'data' is located. Unfortunately, I haven't be able to recreate the problem. I think we can say that various processes are running in off hours for extended periods of time. For example, the DataCare, the Toolkit, and other Backups. Is there a chance that these processes are overlapping?

I'm sure the next version of DataCare will detect and cleanup after detecting an incomplete backup.

The last time we had this problem there was another process running (a back up from another program) and when I stopped the other process from running, it corrected the problem.

This time, I confirmed that there were no other processes running. Deleting some files on the target drive both in the folder where the back ups are going (c:\backup) and c:\windows\temp on the computer that is running the DataCare job is what fixed the problem.

When DataCare reports, "Everything is okay" what it should say is "Everything might be okay, but check your back up to see if your zip file is corrupt".

Hope to see this resolved with next version.

Please ensure there is ample space where your data is located. That's likely different from your program drive and backup drive.

Bob:

Something must be different. We use an unattended process that creates the two backups one after the other, Datacare and Toolkit, in different networks and disk sizes. Datacare fails sometimes, Toolkit backup never fails. It is probably that the network is slower when Datacare fails, but it doesn't happen to the Toolkit backup. It is unfortunate that we cannot rely on Datacare backup, because Toolkit doesn't have the feature to clean up its own old backups.

We're experiencing the same problems as described here again. I have confirmed there are no other processes running during the back up. I deleted the old back ups and the windows/temp folder again so we'll see how things go tonight.

Last night the zip files went all the way up to 13. I'm going to have to find an alternative back up method. The back up we run before the day end from OE/Complete Dataset is still working fine, but the one from DataCare that runs after the Day End is not working, although it's being reported in DataCare as a success. Maybe I should try unchecking "back up all files in the directory"? Although, I wish I could back up all the files.

Hi Susan,

Are you backing up all the files in subdirectories too? Is it possible you are running out of space in your Windows\temp directory?

We'll see what we can do to better catch this occurrance in any event.

BTW - if you're looking for a robust, solid, on and off premise backup solution, I'd STRONGLY recommend looking at ShadowSafe from VitalEsafe.

It has saved Softrak's bacon 4 times in the last 12 months when people have inadvertantly deleted files that they wanted (the most common reason to need a backup copy).