Scheduled "Tag" job breaks backup engine

[RussF]

Here's an interesting one for you Adrian...

Running B4A 8.8 Build 335. Tried later version, but it broke our backup connection to an industrial CNC controller running Win 98 so had to revert to previous version. (Yes, I know, Win 98...but this is one of those "If it isn't broken, don't fix it" situations - to upgrade would cost as much as a whole new machine.)

We run B4A on a dedicated PC acting as a backup server and use administrative shares to reach out to all our PC's to back them up to a massive drive on this server.

Last Friday, (today is Tuesday) I decided to experiment with backing up "tags". I took a group of 7 existing (and working) jobs (PCs on our manufacturing floor), deleted the schedule from each job and made them all members of a tag called "Floor". I then went into the scheduler and set this tag to back up at 6:00 PM. All of our office PCs and servers back up later throughout the night. I then went home for the weekend.

On Monday, I did my usual check for jobs with warnings or errors and finding none, I went on with my day. What I failed to check closely were the last successful backup dates and times. A user came to me this morning and said they needed to restore a file from last night's backup, but that only Thursday's version was there. What???

It seems that once the tag job "Floor" completed (and it completed fine), NO OTHER JOBS were executed since! Windows' Task Scheduler shows all the jobs in the queue. B4A was responsive and showed the jobs in the scheduler and showed that the jobs ran. Looking at the logs, all of the bSchedStarter logs are there, but the corresponding jobs are not. The last entry in each of those logs is "Error: Cannot connect to the ipc server : Cannot connect pipe client". I then tried to force an existing scheduled job to back up immediately and B4A locked up and became unresponsive.

If you have any thoughts (other than upgrading, which I've already said we can't do at this time), I'm all ears. For now, I'm going to remove the tag job and revert to the way it was before. Thanks.

Russ

[Adrian (Softland)]

Hi,

The scheduled task calls the bSchedStarter.exe process which uses the IPC Server (bservice.exe) to start the actual backup process.
From the information you provided, it seems the IPC Server could not be reached and the backup was not executed.

Please put the bservice.exe process in the exceptions list of the antivirus/firewall.
Also make sure the "Backup4all service" is started and running in Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Services.

[RussF]

Hi Adrian,

You are right, the IPC server could not be reached. Every scheduled task calls the bSchedStarter process when it triggers. We have about 45 individual backup jobs that run throughout the night and they have been running flawlessly every night, so I don't think it has anything to do with our antivirus.

What I did was take 7 of those existing jobs and delete the scheduled time for each of them. I then created a tag and added those 7 jobs to it. I made no other changes to the jobs themselves. Then, in the B4A scheduler, I created a task to back up that tag of 7 jobs. That task ran, and the files backed up, but subsequent tasks/jobs did not.

Here is the last few lines from the log of the "tag" job:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[3/5/2021 6:03:46 PM] UAC prevented settings SE_BACKUP_NAME privilege : Not all privileges or groups referenced are assigned to the caller [1300]
[3/5/2021 6:03:46 PM] UAC prevented settings SE_RESTORE_NAME privilege : Not all privileges or groups referenced are assigned to the caller [1300]
[3/5/2021 6:03:46 PM] Opening file "C:\Users\twl\AppData\Roaming\Softland\Backup4all 8\Backup4all.hst"
[3/5/2021 6:03:47 PM] The "Floor" tag contains 7 jobs
[3/5/2021 6:03:47 PM] Trying to start action for backup job {87EB47CF-20D8-4FE7-AD19-748B01114C0E}
[3/5/2021 6:03:47 PM] Started "C:\Program Files (x86)\Softland\Backup4all 8\bbackup.exe" {87EB47CF-20D8-4FE7-AD19-748B01114C0E} /TG -PRIORITY 2 [15488]
[3/5/2021 6:04:47 PM] Trying to start action for backup job {91538B53-FE74-4766-9020-EB381A55EFB5}
[3/5/2021 6:04:47 PM] Started "C:\Program Files (x86)\Softland\Backup4all 8\bbackup.exe" {91538B53-FE74-4766-9020-EB381A55EFB5} /TG -PRIORITY 2 [13772]
[3/5/2021 6:05:48 PM] Trying to start action for backup job {CE73CEB6-A9F0-4B94-8E58-7272C858CD4B}
[3/5/2021 6:05:48 PM] Started "C:\Program Files (x86)\Softland\Backup4all 8\bbackup.exe" {CE73CEB6-A9F0-4B94-8E58-7272C858CD4B} /TG -PRIORITY 2 [15832]
[3/5/2021 6:06:49 PM] Trying to start action for backup job {111946A6-9860-40CD-9F1B-CBE68AC21AC4}
[3/5/2021 6:06:49 PM] Started "C:\Program Files (x86)\Softland\Backup4all 8\bbackup.exe" {111946A6-9860-40CD-9F1B-CBE68AC21AC4} /TG -PRIORITY 2 [16900]
[3/5/2021 6:07:49 PM] Trying to start action for backup job {B77D2D4D-DCBB-4151-A273-C1F851E54A1E}
[3/5/2021 6:07:49 PM] Started "C:\Program Files (x86)\Softland\Backup4all 8\bbackup.exe" {B77D2D4D-DCBB-4151-A273-C1F851E54A1E} /TG -PRIORITY 2 [16676]
[3/5/2021 6:08:50 PM] Trying to start action for backup job {6FA8A615-9846-46EA-A5E2-9C7927EB2498}
[3/5/2021 6:08:50 PM] Started "C:\Program Files (x86)\Softland\Backup4all 8\bbackup.exe" {6FA8A615-9846-46EA-A5E2-9C7927EB2498} /TG -PRIORITY 2 [1144]
[3/5/2021 6:09:51 PM] Trying to start action for backup job {B8ACDDED-61D7-4DAA-94E4-80330970121A}
[3/5/2021 6:09:51 PM] Started "C:\Program Files (x86)\Softland\Backup4all 8\bbackup.exe" {B8ACDDED-61D7-4DAA-94E4-80330970121A} /TG -PRIORITY 2 [14680]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is the last few lines from the bSchedStarter log for the "tag" job:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[3/5/2021 6:01:58 PM] bSchedstarter was started with the following command line
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Softland\Backup4all 8\bSchedStarter.EXE" /HIDE /R "{3EF0CEF9-54FA-46E8-A163-B8625F713D5F}" /TG -PRIORITY 2
[3/5/2021 6:01:58 PM] bSchedStarted started in Session 0.
[3/5/2021 6:01:58 PM] Sending request to service with params [/R "{3EF0CEF9-54FA-46E8-A163-B8625F713D5F}" /TG -PRIORITY "2"]
[3/5/2021 6:01:58 PM] Sent imtStartWithCmdLine with params [/R "{3EF0CEF9-54FA-46E8-A163-B8625F713D5F}" /TG -PRIORITY "2"]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And here is the last few lines from the bSchedStarter log for the very next job scheduled after the "tag" job:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[3/5/2021 6:30:31 PM] Sending request to service with params [/R "{AD8510E5-1DD8-4E25-84BF-08F66434B82A}" -PRIORITY "2"]
[3/5/2021 6:31:31 PM] Error: Cannot Register to the ipc server : Timeout waiting for a reply to imtRegister 0
[3/5/2021 6:31:42 PM] Error: Cannot connect to the ipc server : Cannot connect pipe client
[3/5/2021 6:31:52 PM] Error: Cannot connect to the ipc server : Cannot connect pipe client
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, logic would dictate that something in the act of processing the tag job stopped the service. After I sent my first message, I deleted the scheduled tag job in the B4A scheduler, removed the backup jobs from the tag and deleted the tag itself. I then rescheduled each of the 7 jobs individually as they were before and the entire backup (all scheduled jobs) ran perfectly.

I can certainly continue scheduling jobs individually, it just seemed that it would be a little more efficient to use tags. I'm functional now, but this is just something for you to think on.

Russ

[Adrian (Softland)]

Hi,

For the scheduled task created to start the tag backup, please go to Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Task Scheduler.
Edit that task and select "Run with highest privileges" option.
Do you have the same problem?

[edbyrne]

The IPC server could not be reached.

[Adrian (Softland)]

Hi,

Please put the bservice.exe process, from the Backup4all installation folder, in the exceptions list of the antivirus/firewall.
Also make sure the "Backup4all Service" service is started and running properly in Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Services.