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PostPosted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 1:13 pm 
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****** WARNING Newbie WARNING ******
I have been looking at BDBB for some time and decided I need to back up my extensive computer backup on my Windows Home Server. So I took the plunge and installed BDBB. My first attempt to back up my client computer images failed with an error message that it failed nothing more… So I restarted the server and made another attempt with BDBB. This one hung at 6% for about 6 hours, but never threw an error. I tried a third time with an external esata 1tb HD, no success their either. So I decided to start over and delete BDBB backups. I opened the WHS console, settings, BDBB, and on the Backups tab the Delete button was greyed out…. , the clients tab had nothing, but the advanced tab did have a delete button. To be fair the text above the Delete button said it would permanently delet the current WHS Backup Database and all client computer backups… Well that sounded like I what I wanted to do, Delete all of the failed BDBB which were failed backups of client computers…. So with the click of a button and about 10 seconds it was done. But wait the backup tab still showed the failed BDBB backups were still there? A quick look at my Server Storage showed I had freed up almost 2.5 TB of space?? A quick check of my Computer Backups tab showed the nuclear disaster, I had wrought.
4 years of Client Computer backup including all the initial installs with required software, each Service pack and the individual software installs of all 10 computers were ALL GONE.
Post mortem. I figured out why BDBB failed. I had 2.5TB of backups I was trying to put on my WHS in 1.5 TB of available space, and (on the 3rd attempt) a 1 TB external Hard drive. No wonder they failed. I had not realized I needed that much storage. The good news is I now have plenty of space on my WHS. :-|
I am not a newbie to computers, I started in 1976 with a home built ALTAR 8080, and have been building / working with PC’s ever since. It is my assumption that the delete button worked with in the BDBB database. Don’t get me wrong I am not blaming BDBB for my stupidity. I just couldn’t conceive that a one button disaster would be implemented, which does the same thing the WHS console does, except I have to individually select which computer I want to delete., which is as it should be. My only suggestion to help stupid/frustrated people like me in the future, would be to remove the one button nuclear disaster, and have the users manually delete each computer in the WHS Console. This post is intended to warn newbie’s that they can create the exact problem they installed BDBB to prevent. Learn from my mistakes.

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PostPosted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 1:29 pm 
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That's a horrible situation and I'm very sorry to hear about this. I thought the wording was clear, and to be fair it's a two-button disaster click, there is a confirm dialog to make sure you want to delete your backup database. The button is there because I've had numerous forum members end up with a corrupted backup database that they cannot remove, at which point it is not possible to individually delete the computer backups as you propose.

In order to delete the BDBB backups, you have to select it and then the Delete button will be enabled.

I do checks that should not allow you to back up a WHS backup DB that is larger than the destination drive, I'm surprised to hear that this happened.

Edit: I'm open to more input, if people think the feature is too dangerous, or if people think it's a good idea.

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PostPosted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 10:05 pm 
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Hi All:
My problem is that I cannot restore a backup of the backups I made several months ago. I had my primary drive crash, leaving the three other drives intact. After installing WHS on a fresh 1.5G drive, I tried to follow the instructions at another site to move the shares and folders back to the new primary drive, and to restore the backup registry. Well, that did not work, a couple of perhaps 1000 backups were restores but the rest failed. Repair did not help. So I went back to a BDBB backup I made last April. When I tried to restore after installing the latest version, it reported not enough space. I tried several time, and it seemed I should have enough space.
Well, having faith I took one of the other drives and joined it back to the storage pool, knowing that I would permanently loose the backups that were there.
I tried to restore again, and got the same error. This time I thought to look in the log and I find:
Event Type: Warning
Event Source: WHS BDBB Settings
Event Category: None
Event ID: 0
Date: 9/15/2010
Time: 8:44:54 PM
User: N/A
Computer: SERVER
Description:
Error comparing WHS name with registry name: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at Microsoft.HomeServer.HomeServerConsoleTab.WHSBDBB.HomeServerSettingsExtender.UpdateClientInfo()

I really would like to restore the backups, but do not know what to do now.

Thanks


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PostPosted: Thu Sep 16, 2010 7:59 am 
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If it says you don't have enough space, I need to see what space you do have available. Please show me the the BDBB Backups tab, and your Server Storage tab.

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 2:25 pm 
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Here are the screenshots you asked for.
Attachment:
serverStorage.JPG
serverStorage.JPG [ 91.01 KiB | Viewed 81411 times ]

Attachment:
bdbb.JPG
bdbb.JPG [ 68.09 KiB | Viewed 81411 times ]


Thanks for your help
Please note the following.
As I mentioned in the prior email, the first couple of attempts failed with the error mentioned. It appeared that I should have had around 50GB free after restoring the backups. Perhaps a greater margin was needed.
Then after I added a drive to the pool, the restore failed with the same error. Then I waited for re balancing to finish, tried again, it failed again, and I wrote the post and went to bed.
This evening I noticed that WHS had rebooted after installing an update. Just for the heck of it I tried again, and THIS TIME IT WORKED. \:D/

So, needless to say, I am very, very happy and impressed with the product. It really answers the number one weakness with WHS.

One last question - when the new version of WHS is released, do you expect to be able to migrate both backups and shares to the new version from the old, perhaps using you BDBB files?

Many thanks,
Rocky


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PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 11:34 am 
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I'm glad it ended up working for you. I suspect it wouldn't restore because there wasn't enough free space on the system drive but it'll be hard to tell for sure now.

The backup format is not compatible in Vail to my knowledge, so no, there will be no migration of the WHS v1 backups to v2.

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PostPosted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 2:59 pm 
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Wow! Just learned my impression of cloud back-up of Home Server was flawed and then I found this add-in. This may be the solution! I had thought it was great to backup my local PC's to the server over my faster network and then use a third-party app to backup the backups from the server up to Amazon S3 at leisure. Now I learn/realize that the apss only backup shared folders. Can I use this add-in to create and store a backup of the back-up straight to the cloud, an external drive, or shared folder on the server so an app could copy it to the cloud? I assume the add-in is effectively copying the entire server backup database so transfer size may make this impractical.

I'm most interested in having an offsite archive of photos and home movies that individual family members store on their PC's. We use some sync tools now to copy to their folders on the server and share but these also appear to be excluded from the cloud backups. Obviously, this is to address home theft, etc and not just a redundancy of backup media.


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PostPosted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 4:58 pm 
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BellevueRambo wrote:
Can I use this add-in to create and store a backup of the back-up straight to the cloud

No.
Quote:
an external drive

Yes.
Quote:
or shared folder on the server so an app could copy it to the cloud

Yes.
Quote:
I assume the add-in is effectively copying the entire server backup database so transfer size may make this impractical.

BDBB makes a backup of the backup database (i.e., the database of your client PC backups).
Quote:
I'm most interested in having an offsite archive of photos and home movies that individual family members store on their PC's.

Sync those files to a share on the server and then backup that share to the cloud.
Quote:
We use some sync tools now to copy to their folders on the server and share but these also appear to be excluded from the cloud backups.

You might need to check your cloud backup settings.


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PostPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 2:54 pm 
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Hi, thanks for this great add-in. Once I actually had to use the restore for a smooth transition to a new home server. It worked great!

I have two questions on version 1.0.3.3
1) Are the backups compatible with 1.0.2.2, meaning can version 1.0.3.3 restore a backup made by 1.0.2.2?
2) Is now logging off during a backup supported? In earlier versions the backup was immediatly cancelled. I prefer logging off to free processor resources. If it's still not supported, can it be considered?

Thanks, and keep up de good work!


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PostPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 4:17 pm 
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zdv wrote:
I have two questions on version 1.0.3.3
1) Are the backups compatible with 1.0.2.2, meaning can version 1.0.3.3 restore a backup made by 1.0.2.2?

Yes.
Quote:
2) Is now logging off during a backup supported? In earlier versions the backup was immediatly cancelled. I prefer logging off to free processor resources. If it's still not supported, can it be considered?

Not quite sure what you mean by "logging off", but you should be able to close the console on a client machine with BDBB running and the BDBB backup will continue to run and complete. You should be able to close the console from a RDP session with BDBB running and the BDBB backup will continue to run and complete. If you somehow log off a RDP session and shut down running processes, then maybe not. You should be able to log off a RDP session with BDBB running and BDBB should continue to run and complete the backup.


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PostPosted: Wed Sep 22, 2010 5:47 pm 
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cavediver wrote:
zdv wrote:
I have two questions on version 1.0.3.3
1) Are the backups compatible with 1.0.2.2, meaning can version 1.0.3.3 restore a backup made by 1.0.2.2?

Yes.

Thanks, that convinced me for upgrading.
Quote:
Quote:
2) Is now logging off during a backup supported? In earlier versions the backup was immediatly cancelled. I prefer logging off to free processor resources. If it's still not supported, can it be considered?

Not quite sure what you mean by "logging off", but you should be able to close the console on a client machine with BDBB running and the BDBB backup will continue to run and complete. You should be able to close the console from a RDP session with BDBB running and the BDBB backup will continue to run and complete. If you somehow log off a RDP session and shut down running processes, then maybe not. You should be able to log off a RDP session with BDBB running and BDBB should continue to run and complete the backup.

With logging off I mean, loggnig off the RDP session. In WHS Console, in dialog WHS settings, press Shut Down (left bottom) then select Log off.
Anyway - I just tried it and no, it does not work. It's too bad WHS BDBB still runs in the WHSConsole process, because that process shuts down when any plugin or thread is too slow. And that happens a lot.


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PostPosted: Wed Sep 22, 2010 6:07 pm 
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(On discussion where somebody pressed Delete in advanced tab and lost all backups)
yakuza wrote:
That's a horrible situation and I'm very sorry to hear about this. I thought the wording was clear, and to be fair it's a two-button disaster click, there is a confirm dialog to make sure you want to delete your backup database. The button is there because I've had numerous forum members end up with a corrupted backup database that they cannot remove, at which point it is not possible to individually delete the computer backups as you propose.
Edit: I'm open to more input, if people think the feature is too dangerous, or if people think it's a good idea.

As a software developer myself, having developed mostly for non ICT crowds I noticed this:
1) Users suffer from "dialog blindness" - text that is shown in a dialog box or message box is hardly read, and not always understood as intended by the developers.
2) When a user cannot achieve his task in the way he wants it, he starts clicking around. Combined with dialog blindness he is in a very dangerous situation.

Given the impact of the delete button and the easy access to this, I'd say it's a bad idea. I suggest to write a help page about deleting a corrupted backup database, with some instructions like command-line programs. In the dialog just add a link to the help page. Now the user is forced to read the instructions before he knows how to delete the backup database.


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PostPosted: Wed Sep 22, 2010 6:15 pm 
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zdv wrote:
With logging off I mean, loggnig off the RDP session. In WHS Console, in dialog WHS settings, press Shut Down (left bottom) then select Log off.
Anyway - I just tried it and no, it does not work. It's too bad WHS BDBB still runs in the WHSConsole process, because that process shuts down when any plugin or thread is too slow. And that happens a lot.


The best way I've found over the years to shut down the console from a client PC or from a RDP session is to press the X box in the upper right corner. It leaves your services and programs running. BDBB will continue to run if you just close the console using the X button. I've never used that Shut Down button under settings because it's there for actually shutting down the server which would close running programs and services. I often run the console in an actual RDP session and shut down the console the same way then log off of the RDP session. I know the console is a mini RDP session, but you have to log on with the administrator password and I believe by logging off using the Shut Down button under Settings, you're actually logging off the administrator.


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PostPosted: Thu Sep 23, 2010 2:28 am 
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You are right that logging off does shutdown the running programs started by the Administrator, but the services keep running. With services I mean the Server service (file access), network service, www service, backup service etc. They start immediatly when the server boots, and do not wait until an Administrator logged in. And they keep running after the Administrator logged off.

I noticed that when WHS Console starts, the add-ins get no processor time. But once they are activated, these add-ins keep getting processor time for the rest of RDP session. To prove my point, my Acer Easystore has an add-in that looks similar to the performance tab of Task Manager - it shows the recent history of processor usage in a tab. After logging on, and not switching to that page it gets no history: if I wait five minutes and switch to that tab, it shows no history. But once activated it will always have a history. It doesn't matter if I look at other tabs a long time or disconnect the RDP session ("close console window on PC"), when I return it has a history.

The background is that WHS BDBB cannot make a backup once I visited too many addins - the console just crashes. So I learnt to log off every time, so when I log on to make a WHS BDBB backup I know for sure that the backup will succeed. But this habit sometimes goes to far, when I leave the console while a WHS BDBB backup is running I accidently log off too...

BTW I don't have an obscene amount of add-ins: just DiskManager, WHS BDBB and Advanced Admin Console. And Acer put on a System Information tab with performance history. But it's enough for WHS BDBB to crash.


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PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2010 5:55 am 
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zdv wrote:
Given the impact of the delete button and the easy access to this, I'd say it's a bad idea. I suggest to write a help page about deleting a corrupted backup database, with some instructions like command-line programs. In the dialog just add a link to the help page. Now the user is forced to read the instructions before he knows how to delete the backup database.


Restoring a backup also deletes the Backup Database, should I also take out that functionality in case a user doesn't understand that restoring a Backup replaces the current DB?

zdv wrote:
The background is that WHS BDBB cannot make a backup once I visited too many addins - the console just crashes. So I learnt to log off every time, so when I log on to make a WHS BDBB backup I know for sure that the backup will succeed. But this habit sometimes goes to far, when I leave the console while a WHS BDBB backup is running I accidently log off too...


I've never heard of this in the ~2 years that the Add-In has been available. If you experience this behavior you can send me the most recent homeserverconsole.log and any relevant logs from the Application Event Viewer on the server and I'll see if there's any indication of why.

Yes, BDBB still runs within the Console process, this is not the best solution but how it works for now.

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