"Show Log"

[teasip]

I have a schedule setup to auto copy my Intel iMac on Sat. mornings five minutes after I set the Mac to "wake up". Whenever I click "Show Log" nothing happens. I have just manual backed up my drive (onto a WD FW/USB ext. HD) and again nothing happens when I click "Show Log". I have this happen more often than not (which implies the log being accessable from time to time). Why?

[dnanian]

Sounds like the backup hasn't ever happened, teasip -- you should set the backup to happen one minute after wake, not five: it's likely going back to sleep very quickly after the wake...

[teasip]

Once unit is awakened it does not shut back down for 1 1/2 hours which allows for ample time to back up the hard drive. Last night when I manually backed up the HD I was sitting at the computer when the backup completed successfully according to the display. Even right at this moment, knowing that the backup took place, I can select the "Show Log" button or can select in the drop down menu and nothing happens.

[dnanian]

A manual backup is different than "Show Log" in the schedule window. That log can be viewed by selecting the main window and then choosing "Show Log" from the Window menu.

Also, I realize that your Mac is supposed to not sleep for 1.5 hours according to your Energy Saver settings. But when a wake event occurs, the Mac often goes *right* back to sleep. That's why we suggest what we do.

[teasip]

I'll give it a shot.

[CipherSwarm]

Dave:
I recently had an unneeded panic attack because of this "dual logging". I thought my backups were running nightly, but when I launched SuperDuper! and went to "Show Log..." in the menu bar, I saw a three week old timestamp and immediately thought, "Oh no! This drive is failing and hasn't been backed up in three weeks?!?" After backing up, and reading this post, I realized that I've all ready gone through this once before: scheduled backups, checked logs, and falsely thought they weren't running, and discovered the separate "scheduled backup" log. Seems I'm getting amnesia early in my twenties...a bit early

I'm glad to see that my backups were running when I thought they weren't (and that's much better than the opposite!), but I can't think of a way to make it more clear to the user that the logs found in the menu bar don't represent all the logs that SuperDuper! has been keeping. I wish I had more ideas on what you could do to the GUI to help.

[dnanian]

Thanks for the suggestion, CipherSwarm.