preparing shadow copy . . . please wait

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Billf
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Jul 07, 2010 6:42 am

preparing shadow copy . . . please wait

Post by Billf »

Hi

I'm currently evaluating a couple of backup apps on Windows 7 to a Blu-ray drive. Of the ones I've used so far Backup4All 4.4 is by far the best (fastest, user friendly, clean UI, etc.).

BUT at random it seems to hang up while it is "preparing shadow copy . . . please wait". This, of course, makes it a very unreliable setup for me to use . . . to be honest, it is next to useless. Please don't think that I'm putting all the blame on Backup4All as I have only recently upgraded to Windows 7 from XP, so it could well be my OS set-up.

As an attempt at solving the problem I've set the Volume Shadow copying in Services to start automatically. This seemed to fix it for a day or so, but now the problem has returned.

Any help would be gratefully accepted, as I would definitely like to get this resolved before I consider making a purchase.

TIA

Bill

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

Re: preparing shadow copy . . . please wait

Post by Adrian (Softland) »

Hi,

1. What version of Backup4all do you use?
2. What antivirus do you use?
3. What changes have you made that affected the Volume Shadow Copy service?

Please note you can turn off the backup open files option from Properties->Advanced page, which will result in a faster backup.
Do you know you can monitor your backups remotely with Backup4all Monitor? You can read more here: https://www.backup4all.com/backup4all-monitor.html

Henrik Hermansen
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2010 11:25 am

Re: preparing shadow copy . . . please wait

Post by Henrik Hermansen »

While I read this, I have the same problem. I have used B4A for a long time and use it regularly. Normally it works fine, but this time it hangs. The change is that I updated to v44 build 213 since last time I created a backup. I'm on Win 7 x64 and use Bullguard 9. Btw, there is plenty of space left on my backup disk.
I can add that I clicked Cancel, but this process seems to take forever too.
Excellent products deserve improvement suggestions.

Henrik Hermansen
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2010 11:25 am

Re: preparing shadow copy . . . please wait

Post by Henrik Hermansen »

After my above post I killed the process and rebooted the computer, then tried again with the same result: B4A hangs during preparing shadow copy (what happens in that phase?) and never gets to the copying part. Cancel also hangs - I let it try for more than an hour.

I uninstalled build 213 and installed my former build which is v4.4 b189 which made it work again. In b189 Prepare shadow copy only takes 20 seconds.
Excellent products deserve improvement suggestions.

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

Re: preparing shadow copy . . . please wait

Post by Adrian (Softland) »

Hi,

Please go to Start->Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Services.
Make sure the Volume shadow copy service is started and set to Manual.
Do you know you can monitor your backups remotely with Backup4all Monitor? You can read more here: https://www.backup4all.com/backup4all-monitor.html

ToddBooth

Re: preparing shadow copy . . . please wait

Post by ToddBooth »

I'm having the same hang. I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.

In the above, support wrote:

> Please go to Start->Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Services.
> Make sure the Volume shadow copy service is started and set to Manual.

My Volume shadow copy service is started and set to Manual.

What should we try next (and I would like to backup open files)?

Regards, Todd

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

Re: preparing shadow copy . . . please wait

Post by Adrian (Softland) »

@ToddBooth

What antivirus do you use?
Do you know you can monitor your backups remotely with Backup4all Monitor? You can read more here: https://www.backup4all.com/backup4all-monitor.html

ToddBooth
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Jul 18, 2010 1:44 pm

Re: preparing shadow copy . . . please wait

Post by ToddBooth »

Hi,

I'm using Microsoft Security Essentials. Here is some new information.

My original failure to backup open files was on a big backup (250GB). I ran a new test with open files (2GB). Everything worked fine. Over the next week I will try to narrow the failure by changing what I backup.

Regards,

Todd

ToddBooth
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Jul 18, 2010 1:44 pm

Re: preparing shadow copy . . . please wait

Post by ToddBooth »

Hello,

I did more testing and here are the results. Previously my backup hung when preparing a shadow copy. Now the same backup does not hang. So the problem is intermittent. If the problem comes back I'll try to narrow the problem down. What you might want to do is the following. Add some code so that if the preparing shadow takes longer than expected provide some debugging log information which will help identify the issue.

Regards,

Todd

GerryB
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Jul 20, 2010 6:49 am

Re: preparing shadow copy . . . please wait

Post by GerryB »

Hi,
I have two systems showing the same problem. Both are Win7 Ultimate 64-bit. One was built in November 2009; the other two weeks ago. The older system was upgraded to build 213 at the same time the newer system was built. Both systems are taking over 15 hours to do a full backup with all but three hours of that time spent in the the Preparing Shadow Copy ... Please wait phase. Boy is that appropriately named :-) Differential backups are also taking up to a couple of hours to get through that phase. Both of my XP Pro systems are spending from a few minutes to twenty minutes though they do have smaller backups. During the time it is in the problem state, the backup4all I/O Other counter is increasing steadily to a value of between 1 and 2 million requests. The I/O Read and I/O Write counters never budge until the Shadow Copy phase finishes. On both Win7 systems, 4 of the 8 CPU's are in use during the Shadow Copy phase. So, on both systems the problem started at the same time as the Build 213 install, the problem does NOT show up on XP systems, and the amount of delay is proportional to the amount of data. The time spent in the Shadow Copy phase is now up to 2 hours for differential backups and 15 hours for full backups. Full backups on both Win7 systems spend about 3 to 3.5 hours doing useful work and 12 to 15 hours in the Shadow Copy phase. All systems are running Norton Internet Security AV and the cygwin package, however disabling either or both has no effect. Also, setting up excludes in backup4all of the source paths of all of MS's symlinks and junctions has no effect either. All OS, utility, and application software on all 4 systems is current as of yesterday.

I hope this additional information helps with the pursuit of this problem. I can cope with the reduced system performance, but my wife is absolutely in hate with the whole concept.

Best Regards and Happy Hunting,
Gerry B

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