How to get rid of warnings for open files

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SharkAttack
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2011 8:01 pm

How to get rid of warnings for open files

Post by SharkAttack »

Hi,

Another newbie question ;)

I use Backup4all Pro v4.5 build 236 on Win 7 Pro.

I have noticed that my logfiles (also sent by email) from Backup4all contain warnings for open files and my question to you experts is what approach you suggest would the best for handling these warnings, preferrably to suppress them in some smart way. The warnings are not a problem by it's own, they are rather harmless as of what I can see. The open files are backed up fine (checked option for open files) as far as I can see (also restored them successfully). But since there sometimes might be quite a few open files on the system it can be a bit enoying to have the long message in the subject line of the emails and also the sometimes high number of warnings sent after backup completion.

I can see these possible soloutions

1. Live with it and ignore them
2. Use option to not send emails with warnings. Maybe I then miss more important warnings...
3. Uncheck option to backup open files. Not the best soloution since I would prefer to backup the NTUSER.DAT files
4. Filter out known open files or it's extensions. Not a good solution either since I have other important files ending with .dat that I need to backup.

What other possible and smart solutions is there that I haven't thought of ?
I simply want it to backup open files but not log them as warnings, if possible.

How do you usually do in similar situations ?

Some of the files it complains about in my case are the hidden user profile file NTUSER.DAT and it's log and also the UsrClass.dat with corresponding logfile. Since the backup sometimes run when the user is logged in I guess I have to live with that and cope with the warnings in the best possible way.

Here is a snippet from my backup log regarding NTUSER.DAT:

[2011-02-07 19:30:18] Archiving files to 2011-02-07_M11_incremental.5_C.zip
[2011-02-07 19:30:26] Warning: Skipping file C:\Users\<my-user>\NTUSER.DAT
The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process (TLFNFileStream.CreateFile) (srFileOpenError)
[2011-02-07 19:30:26] Warning: Skipping file C:\Users\<my-user>\ntuser.dat.LOG1
The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process (TLFNFileStream.CreateFile) (srFileOpenError)
[2011-02-07 19:30:26] Warning: Skipping file C:\Users\<my-user>\ntuser.dat.LOG2
The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process (TLFNFileStream.CreateFile) (srFileOpenError)

Here is a snippet from my backup log regarding UsrClass.dat:

[2011-02-07 19:30:26] Warning: Skipping file C:\Users\<my-user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\windows\UsrClass.dat
The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process (TLFNFileStream.CreateFile) (srFileOpenError)
[2011-02-07 19:30:26] Warning: Skipping file C:\Users\<my-user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\windows\UsrClass.dat.LOG1
The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process (TLFNFileStream.CreateFile) (srFileOpenError)
[2011-02-07 19:30:26] Warning: Skipping file C:\Users\<my-user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\windows\UsrClass.dat.LOG2

Many thanks in advance

Rgds

/Lars

Adrian (Softland)
Posts: 1914
Joined: Wed Dec 16, 2009 12:46 pm

Re: How to get rid of warnings for open files

Post by Adrian (Softland) »

Hi,

First you should see why those files cannot be backed up.
Make sure the Volume Shadow Copy service is working fine on your computer.
To find it, go to Start->Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Services.

You can filter the source files by "ntuser.dat" and "UsrClass.dat".
Do you know you can monitor your backups remotely with Backup4all Monitor? You can read more here: https://www.backup4all.com/backup4all-monitor.html

SharkAttack
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2011 8:01 pm

Re: How to get rid of warnings for open files

Post by SharkAttack »

Thanks for the reply.

Well, funny enough the files are in fact backed up correctly, I can both see them in the zip file and also restore them.

Could it be that Backup4all can "copy" the file to the zipfile ok but any other operation will fail and cause the warning, such as clear the archive flag or whatever it tries to do ?

The VSS service was in state manual, I changed it to automatic. Will run another backup and see if it makes any difference to the warning messages.

Rgds

/Lars

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