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#1
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Problems with schedules randomly not working
I'm a Mac IT consultant, and I have a number of customers using SuperDuper for scheduled backups. I also use it myself at home to back up my server. On every machine I try it on, I seem to have an issue where at some point the schedules will just stop executing. The machines are set not to sleep and not to spin down the hard drives, but it doesn't seem to help. The fix, once I realize it's happened, is to delete and recreate the schedule. I've also noticed that using the Copy Now button on the Scheduled Copies window will almost certainly break it. This problem has been observed on the following versions of OS X on a number of different machines:
10.4.x Client PPC 10.4.x Client Intel 10.5.x Client 10.5.x Server My own server is a dual 867mhz Power Mac G4 (Mirrored Drive Doors) running OS X Server 10.5.4. It's backing up both its internal boot drive to another internal drive, and a Firewire attached data drive to another Firewire drive (on the other port). I've experienced the problem with both of these backup sets. |
#2
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If you set these schedules to run 'a few minutes from now', when they're in this state, do they run? I'm not aware of anything that would mysteriously stop all your users' schedules like this, save for things like erasing the externals outside of SD! or something like that.
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--Dave Nanian |
#3
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It is a pretty strange problem. Some of it may be users who aren't listening to what I tell them and either shutting the machines down or logging out. My server though I can verify that's not happening since it runs 24/7 and has very little direct user interaction.
What is it that triggers the automatic copies in SD? Does it install a daemon that launches it, or is there a launchd job set up, or what? Maybe I can narrow down the problem if I know what it is that's supposed to make these schedules happen. |
#4
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It uses cron, and a user-specific crontab.
__________________
--Dave Nanian |
#5
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The first time I looked at crontab -l it was blank. I deleted and recreated the schedules in SuperDuper, then got then did crontab -l again and got following (dummy host name substituted)
0 2 * * 0 open file:///Network/Servers/server.example.com/Volumes/Data/Network\%20Homes/download/Library/Application\%20Support/SuperDuper\%21/Scheduled\%20Copies/Smart\%20Update\%20Server\%20HD\%20Backup\%20from\ %20Server\%20HD.sdsp/Copy\%20Job.app 0 3 * * * open file:///Network/Servers/server.example.com/Volumes/Data/Network\%20Homes/download/Library/Application\%20Support/SuperDuper\%21/Scheduled\%20Copies/Smart\%20Update\%20Data\%20Backup\%20from\%20Data. sdsp/Copy\%20Job.app So, it seems like SD! is creating little custom app bundles that are stored in ~/Library/Application Support/SuperDuper/Scheduled Copies. I checked and those were present (at least after I had recreated the schedules). The question is, why was the crontab blank? If that's getting dumped for some reason, it would explain why the schedules stop. |
#6
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I don't know: no 'standard' part of OSX deletes the crontab, but perhaps something else you're installing, that's common between you and your clients, is doing so?
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--Dave Nanian |
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