scheduled backup failure

[Dan Lester]

Just thought I'd report an odd occurrence. I have scheduled daily backups to two disks. I hadn't checked on them in a few weeks, but when I did, I found that one was working fine, and the other was not working at all. This second scheduled backup (to a new SSD) simply wasn't running. The "Last Copy" recorded for it was weeks ago, and the "Next Copy" was properly listed for tomorrow. The "Next Copy" was being updated every day, even though the copy was never made. The schedule seemed to be filled out correctly for daily operation, but I deleted and reentered it. It appears to now be working properly. Kind of strange. The lesson here is that if you have scheduled backups, check on the "Last Copy" occasionally to make sure they're really doing what they're supposed to be doing.

[dnanian]

Did you have it set to not give an error when a volume was missing?

[Dan Lester]

I can't be sure, but I don't think the volume was missing from SuperDuper. Certainly the volume was mounted on the machine, as the first clue I had that this was happening was when opened the volume to see what was not supposed to be there.

That being said, how do you set SuperDuper to give an error when the volume is missing? That would be smart thing to do.

[dnanian]

The default is to show an error (it's a checkbox in the settings sheet).

I'm guessing you had it unchecked and had modified the low-level ID of the volume that wasn't running, so while the name may have been the same, it was no longer the same ID as it was before.

[Dan Lester]

Ah, I see that checkbox, and it was not checked. Maybe I accidentally unchecked it? The disk at issue is a new SSD, and I'm writing to two partitions on it. A "weekly" partition, and a "daily" partition. It was the latter that wasn't working. The former was. Both partitions were created at the same time, so it isn't clear why one low-level ID would be screwed up and the other wasn't.

[dnanian]

I don't know, Dan. The evidence is, at this point, lost, so we'll have to see if it happens again.

Remember, we support notifications, and you can use those to see if the backups are running...

[Dan Lester]

That's true about notifications, but if you have multiple backups, the notification doesn't tell you which one was actually completed.

[dnanian]

I don't understand what you mean. It explicitly says "Copy of (source) to (destination) succeeded.", or it'll give an error about a failure...?

[Dan Lester]

Let's see. I'm talking about Mac notifications. When I do a SuperDuper backup, this is the notification that I see.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Xu0YXfjFNkZuF5RJB9v7mo9vYrDQOJYl/view
Doesn't really tell you much. Is there some other notification that I should be getting?

Um, I attached an [IMG] link here, but it doesn't seem to show up. What I'm trying to point you at is
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Xu0YXfjFNkZuF5RJB9v7mo9vYrDQOJYl/view
It simply says "SuperDuper! Copy Succeeded Notification"

[dnanian]

There's no picture in what you sent, but the text is exactly what I typed above.

[Dan Lester]

My apologies. Try this
https://ln5.sync.com/dl/737cf5d40/3dkcjcaa-i6ajbja3-qyfvhmba-28mw5se4
That's the Mac notification I get after I do a SuperDuper backup. It says that it succeeded in doing a backup, but certainly doesn't tell me from where and to where the backup was done. Am I supposed to be seeing a more informative notification?

[dnanian]

For some reason, your notification doesn't have the additional information that's part of the notification, yes. But it's certainly posted with the info, and I can see it here.

[Dan Lester]

Well, I'm a little baffled. The notification I see doesn't give any from- and to- information about a SuperDuper backup. It just says that some backup has succeeded. So if SuperDuper is supposed to be making a more informative notification, why am I not seeing it? What info are you looking at?

Now, I thought I figured it out. I was running a grandfathered Growl, which has now been retired, and I seem to recall that Growl prevents SuperDuper from issuing notifications. But I killed Growl, did another SuperDuper backup, and I still get the same uninformative notification.

[dnanian]

I don't know what to tell you, Dan. That's not what we send. Quite possibly a bug in Apple's notification handling.

[Dan Lester]

Just FYI, I'm using Monterey 12.2.1 on a 2021 M1 iMac. Would like to figure this out. I would sure like to see an "I did THIS backup" notification. Without that, I have to launch SuperDuper and scrounge down in the schedules to see "Last Copy".

[teasip]

I'm having the same issue with 3.6.1 (v124) while still on Catalina 10.15.7. I have mine set to backup to an ext. SSD for Thursday/Sunday copies. It nails the Thursday copies but always miss fires on the Sunday copy, and on the desktop when I log in it shows the message bar of SD notifications (5 this morning) but it doesn't allow me to see what those notifications are. This was never a problem until the last 3-6 mos. I would guess. I don't see a check box to select/unselect as noted above. I can still perform a manual backup.

[dnanian]

If you open Window > Scheduled Copies, select the "misfired" schedule and click Copy Now in the window, what happens?

[teasip]

In my case it then copies just fine.

[dnanian]

That would definitely suggest the drive isn't there when the copy runs. If you double-click that entry in the scheduled copies window, is "Show error..." checked?

[teasip]

I stopped obtaining scheduled bi-weekly backups on Th and Su (usually missing Su backup) over the past several weeks. Running Catalina 10.15.7. I even downgraded SD to what had been a previously reliable version 3.3.1 (v. 121) and yet this morning there was no copy and no error message displayed on desktop. It will allow for manual backups (running one at present). Using an ext. SSD for backup. No issues with TM backing up to same drive under a separate partition.

Yep, "Show error..." is clicked. New change is that it missed today's copy.

[dnanian]

And if you set it to run a few minutes from "now" and watch, what happens? It sounds like it's not waking, or staying awake, even though we've asked it to do so...

[teasip]

I'll give it a shot in a moment or two. Performing iPhone 6Plus (old school) backup at present.

[teasip]

It starts the scheduled run with the computer being in an awake state. Energy Saver options in System Preferences are all checked.

[dnanian]

OK. We definitely schedule a wake event. And we can see here that it does run. So that suggests your Mac may not be waking? Or are you saying it never sleeps? Because if the options are "all checked", that means it won't sleep (since the first option is "prevent sleep")...

[teasip]

I unchecked "Put to sleep when possible". We'll see if it makes a difference. I hadn't changed any setting in System Prefs for years.

[dnanian]

OK; let me know what happens.

[teasip]

No such luck this morning with scheduled copy. I’ll just manually back up.

[dnanian]

Are you forcing the system to sleep - using a hot corner or anything like that?

[teasip]

Nope. Nothing had changed with OS, SD, or settings prior to this having started a couple mos. back now (so it seems).

[dnanian]

How about if you set your schedule to run a few minutes from now, then select sleep (not a hot corner, a command). Does it wake and run while you're watching?

[teasip]

It has developed a mind of its own. I deleted the prior schedule and reset it now using 3x/week backup. Copied successfully per the banner on the home screen when I awakened it this morning. I'll keep an eye out and if it skips again I'll try your last suggestion. Fingers crossed.

Addendum: Two for two as of this morning with scheduled backups this week. Who knows, who cares, as long as it works.

[teasip]

It’s been a week and knock on wood, SD has nailed every scheduled backup over that time. Don’t know what it was but the fact that it’s working is good enough for me.

[dnanian]

Glad it's working now!

[teasip]

Spoke too soon. Missed this morning's scheduled copy.

[dnanian]

Your Mac likely didn't stay awake...or didn't wake.

[Dan Lester]

I thought I'd add this to an old query. I have a couple of daily scheduled backups. It seems they've been failing to run for a couple of days. Turns out that happened when I upgraded from Monterey to Sonoma. I don't think my cron file was erased, as I have other stuff in there that continued to work. I should have looked at it. But I just erased the SuperDuper schedules, reestablished them, and now scheduled backups again work perfectly. Is there something about OS upgrade that messes with SuperDuper cron schedules?

[dnanian]

There shouldn't be; I haven't seen cron entries go away during an OS update. Perhaps the agent wasn't running for some reason?

(Remember - the cron entries are there for "backward compatibility" - they indicate when the backups run, but aren't actually running them: the actual backup is run by our LaunchAgents.)

[Dan Lester]

Well, it is a little funny that my scheduled backups were working for a year, and then quite suddenly, when I upgraded the OS, they stopped happening. Under scheduled copies, SuperDuper accurately admitted that they hadn't been happening, though the backups were still formally scheduled. I take it this isn't happening to anyone else? I should say that I hadn't even manually launched SuperDuper for a few months, so it isn't as if I changed something in the app. Oh well.

[dnanian]

I'm not saying it's not "odd", just that it's not "typical". Since you "fixed" it, though, it's impossible to diagnose after the fact.

Next time, if it happens, send me support email and we'll work through it and try to figure out what it is.

[gihrig]

Just adding some relevant experience.

My long standing scheduled backups stopped running when I did an in place upgrade from up to date Monterey on Intel to Sonoma on Apple M2 Pro.

I noticed this because the usual SuperDuper Apple Notification did not appear.

"Show error if ... is missing" was/is checked. There was no visible error. Scheduled Copies Last Copy field was empty and Next Copy was properly incremented.

Recreating schedules corrected the issue and all has been working as expected for about a week since.

Probably a good idea to recreate schedules after OS upgrade.