Cleanup job removed files that are more recent than specified

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Panos
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Mar 27, 2011 11:56 pm

Cleanup job removed files that are more recent than specified

Post by Panos »

I have set up a cleanup job that removes all backup files older than 3 weeks - except for full backups. It is expected to remove all incremental and differential backups older than 3 weeks. In the few times that I have checked it during the last few months, the state of the backup directory was as expected.

However, when I checked recently, I noticed that recent incremental and differential backups were totally missing from the backup directory. Looking at the log of the corresponding cleanup job I found that it had in fact removed files more recent than 3 weeks.

Here is the log of the cleanup job. Please note that the last two backups (153, 154) are within the 3 week period. In fact, the last incremental backup was only produced a few hours earlier.

Thanks

B4A is running on a 32-bit Vista machine.

?[2012-12-22 07:30:05] Backup4all Professional Edition 4.8.278
[2012-12-22 07:30:05] Starting cleanup on "MyDocs" for backup numbers 134,135,136,137,138,139,140,141,142,143,144,145,146,147,148,149,150,152,153,154 at 2012-12-22 07:30:05
[2012-12-22 07:30:05] Deleting backup number: 134
[2012-12-22 07:30:05] Deleted file: "S:\Hermes_Backups\MyDocs\MyDocs_2012-11-09_1600_Incr.134_C.zip" - OK
[2012-12-22 07:30:26] Deleted backup number 134 from catalog - OK
[2012-12-22 07:30:26] Deleting backup number: 135
[2012-12-22 07:30:27] Deleted file: "S:\Hermes_Backups\MyDocs\MyDocs_2012-11-11_0300_Incr.135_C.zip" - OK
[2012-12-22 07:30:42] Deleted backup number 135 from catalog - OK
[2012-12-22 07:30:42] Deleting backup number: 136
[2012-12-22 07:30:42] Deleted file: "S:\Hermes_Backups\MyDocs\MyDocs_2012-11-11_1600_Incr.136_C.zip" - OK
[2012-12-22 07:30:47] Deleted backup number 136 from catalog - OK
[2012-12-22 07:30:47] Deleting backup number: 137
[2012-12-22 07:30:47] Deleted file: "S:\Hermes_Backups\MyDocs\MyDocs_2012-11-13_0300_Incr.137_C.zip" - OK
[2012-12-22 07:30:52] Deleted backup number 137 from catalog - OK
[2012-12-22 07:30:52] Deleting backup number: 138
[2012-12-22 07:30:52] Deleted file: "S:\Hermes_Backups\MyDocs\MyDocs_2012-11-13_1600_Incr.138_C.zip" - OK
[2012-12-22 07:30:57] Deleted backup number 138 from catalog - OK
[2012-12-22 07:30:57] Deleting backup number: 139
[2012-12-22 07:30:57] Deleted file: "S:\Hermes_Backups\MyDocs\MyDocs_2012-11-14_0300_Diff.139_C.zip" - OK
[2012-12-22 07:31:09] Deleted backup number 139 from catalog - OK
[2012-12-22 07:31:09] Deleting backup number: 140
[2012-12-22 07:31:09] Deleted file: "S:\Hermes_Backups\MyDocs\MyDocs_2012-11-14_1600_Incr.140_C.zip" - OK
[2012-12-22 07:31:16] Deleted backup number 140 from catalog - OK
[2012-12-22 07:31:16] Deleting backup number: 141
[2012-12-22 07:31:16] Deleted file: "S:\Hermes_Backups\MyDocs\MyDocs_2012-11-15_0300_Incr.141_C.zip" - OK
[2012-12-22 07:31:25] Deleted backup number 141 from catalog - OK
[2012-12-22 07:31:25] Deleting backup number: 142
[2012-12-22 07:31:25] Deleted file: "S:\Hermes_Backups\MyDocs\MyDocs_2012-11-16_1600_Incr.142_C.zip" - OK
[2012-12-22 07:31:45] Deleted backup number 142 from catalog - OK
[2012-12-22 07:31:45] Deleting backup number: 143
[2012-12-22 07:31:45] Deleted file: "S:\Hermes_Backups\MyDocs\MyDocs_2012-11-17_0300_Incr.143_C.zip" - OK
[2012-12-22 07:31:51] Deleted backup number 143 from catalog - OK
[2012-12-22 07:31:51] Deleting backup number: 144
[2012-12-22 07:31:52] Deleted file: "S:\Hermes_Backups\MyDocs\MyDocs_2012-11-24_0300_Incr.144_C.zip" - OK
[2012-12-22 07:32:03] Deleted backup number 144 from catalog - OK
[2012-12-22 07:32:03] Deleting backup number: 145
[2012-12-22 07:32:03] Deleted file: "S:\Hermes_Backups\MyDocs\MyDocs_2012-11-24_1600_Incr.145_C.zip" - OK
[2012-12-22 07:32:15] Deleted backup number 145 from catalog - OK
[2012-12-22 07:32:15] Deleting backup number: 146
[2012-12-22 07:32:15] Deleted file: "S:\Hermes_Backups\MyDocs\MyDocs_2012-11-25_0300_Incr.146_C.zip" - OK
[2012-12-22 07:32:24] Deleted backup number 146 from catalog - OK
[2012-12-22 07:32:24] Deleting backup number: 147
[2012-12-22 07:32:24] Deleted file: "S:\Hermes_Backups\MyDocs\MyDocs_2012-11-25_1600_Incr.147_C.zip" - OK
[2012-12-22 07:32:39] Deleted backup number 147 from catalog - OK
[2012-12-22 07:32:39] Deleting backup number: 148
[2012-12-22 07:32:39] Deleted file: "S:\Hermes_Backups\MyDocs\MyDocs_2012-11-26_1612_Diff.148_C.zip" - OK
[2012-12-22 07:32:56] Deleted backup number 148 from catalog - OK
[2012-12-22 07:32:56] Deleting backup number: 149
[2012-12-22 07:32:56] Deleted file: "S:\Hermes_Backups\MyDocs\MyDocs_2012-11-28_1600_Incr.149_C.zip" - OK
[2012-12-22 07:33:03] Deleted backup number 149 from catalog - OK
[2012-12-22 07:33:03] Deleting backup number: 150
[2012-12-22 07:33:03] Deleted file: "S:\Hermes_Backups\MyDocs\MyDocs_2012-11-29_1600_Incr.150_C.zip" - OK
[2012-12-22 07:33:07] Deleted backup number 150 from catalog - OK
[2012-12-22 07:33:07] Deleting backup number: 152
[2012-12-22 07:33:07] Deleted file: "S:\Hermes_Backups\MyDocs\MyDocs_2012-11-30_1600_Incr.152_C.zip" - OK
[2012-12-22 07:33:17] Deleted backup number 152 from catalog - OK
[2012-12-22 07:33:17] Deleting backup number: 153
[2012-12-22 07:33:17] Deleted file: "S:\Hermes_Backups\MyDocs\MyDocs_2012-12-06_1237_Incr.153_C.zip" - OK
[2012-12-22 07:33:36] Deleted backup number 153 from catalog - OK
[2012-12-22 07:33:36] Deleting backup number: 154
[2012-12-22 07:33:36] Deleted file: "S:\Hermes_Backups\MyDocs\MyDocs_2012-12-22_0300_Incr.154_C.zip" - OK
[2012-12-22 07:33:55] Deleted backup number 154 from catalog - OK

[2012-12-22 07:33:55] Saving backup catalog "C:\Users\panos\AppData\Roaming\Softland\Backup4all Professional 4\bkcFiles\MyDocs.bkc"
Cleanup finished at 2012-12-22 07:34:15 with 0 error(s)

Adrian (Softland)
Posts: 1912
Joined: Wed Dec 16, 2009 12:46 pm

Re: Cleanup job removed files that are more recent than specified

Post by Adrian (Softland) »

Hi,

Please note the incremental backups are based on the previous backup execution: incremental, differential or full.
If you select to delete an incremental or differential backup version older than 3 weeks ago, all backups depending on it will be deleted too, otherwise they would be useless.

Were the recently deleted backups based on a recent full backup? or they were based on a differential/incremental backup version older than 3 weeks?

Panos
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Mar 27, 2011 11:56 pm

Re: Cleanup job removed files that are more recent than specified

Post by Panos »

Hi,

Your explanation seems to correctly describe what happened.

However, I wouldn't call partial backups (differential/incremental) which are missing the previous ones they depend on as 'useless'. Even though they do contain only partial information (only some of the recently modified/added files) they may still be valuable, particularly in the case of errors.

Please consider a) the surprise factor - backups are deleted even though the user doesn't expect them to b) although the core backups are deleted from the system, they may already have been e.g. burned to DVD (which I do)

I would suggest that the system not be aggressive in terms of deletions and just follow the user's instructions re: timestamps.

Thanks
Panos

Adrian (Softland)
Posts: 1912
Joined: Wed Dec 16, 2009 12:46 pm

Re: Cleanup job removed files that are more recent than specified

Post by Adrian (Softland) »

Hi,

Backup4all was designed to keep the backups into an organized structure and not keeping only parts of backup.

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