No alert if scheduled backup fails?

[gmachen]

I have a friend who takes much hand-holding. Still on Snow Leopard, doesn't use Growl. I set up a daily scheduled backup for him last year. Turns out he replaced his external hard drive I designated as his backup destination, and today I inspected his setup and discovered that his scheduled backups of course haven't been occurring.

Why didn't he get some kind of alert every time the scheduled backup failed every day?

Is there some way to get such an alert?

[dnanian]

He should be getting a notification of success or failure unless, of course, the Mac is asleep (as indicated in the User's Guide)...could it be?

[gmachen]

Yes, the scheduled backup runs in the middle of the night, preceded by a scheduled awake in System Preferences > Energy Saver, then sleep resumed after the backup. He needs to come in mornings greeted by a big fat alert when he awakens his Mac if the backup failed for whatever reason.... I'm handy with AppleScript, and just now peeked at SuperDuper!'s AppleScript Dictionary, but don't see anything I could use.

[dnanian]

If the drive is not present, SuperDuper! would be left running on the screen, the entry red, and Growl would also present the drive missing error.

[gmachen]

Hmmm... I'll have to ask him why today was the first I've heard about it after all this time; whether he ever noticed the red entry.... In any event, he doesn't use Growl, and I'll ponder a more intrusive AppleScript alert — perhaps based on inspection of the backup log. I'll post it here if I do.

[dnanian]

I really suggest simply installing Growl.