DataBackup3.0
To: ProSoft Engineering
Subject: Data Backup 3.0.0 thru 3.0.3
To whom it may concern:
I recently received Data Backup 3.0.0 on a CD (with Serial number) on an External Disk Drive from Other
World Computing. I successfully installed Data Backup 3.0 (DB3), launched it on my Macintosh Intel-Core
Duo machine running OS X 10.4.10. I've had several problems with your software, and I'm reporting them
to you in the hopes you can correct them in future versions. I'll detail these problems in a numbered list.
1. Initial launch required I enter a User Name Organization, and Serial Number. I filled in all the required
fields, and the "Register" button became active. I clicked "Register" and continued. I then set up my
Preferences, and took a full backup of the "Entire Internal Drive" to my attached and mounted External Disk
Drive. Everything worked fine. At the "Backup completed successfully" message, I clicked OK, and then
Quit.
Problem: when I launched DB3 again, I had to re-enter all the initial information, User Name, Organization,
and Serial Number, and click "Register" again. Apparently the information wasn't saved from the initial
launch. As you'll see later, this happened again, so this could be a bug.
2. I had set my Preferences to NEVER have an automatic backup. My intention was to always "Start Now".
I had chosen "Versioned" backups with 4 versions to keep. I also chose to automatically remove old
versions, and show status on successful completion.
The next day, I did another backup, and this one was shorter because only the difference was written. I did
this again the following day, and after the backup was successfully completed, I decided to look at the Log
Files (under the View menu). When I clicked on that choice, Data Backup Unexpectedly Quit. I filed a
report with Apple. I discovered I could not see the Log Files. Every attempt ended with Unexpectedly Quit
(-43). At this point I decided to Uninstall Data Backup. That eliminated the logs and the Application.
I then re-installed Data Backup from the CD, and when through all the registering and Preference settings
again. I then quit and re-launched, and had to re-register again. On the next launch, I got in without having
to re-register. I took another backup onto the same External Disk Drive and into the same folder (Macintosh
HD). This completed successfully, but now I could View the Log Files. But it Unexpectedly Quit on the
next backup when I tried to view the log files. I may have discovered a possible cause. The
/Library/Logs/databackup/databackup.log file is owned by "root" in group "admin" and was set to -rw-r--
r-- (Read/Write by "root", Read-Only by others). Apparently when trying to show the Log Files, these
permissions don't allow Data Backup to write the databackup.log file and Data Backup crashes. I used
Terminal.app to change the permissions via the "sudo chmod 666 databackup.log" command. This allows
the User to write, and that seems to correct the problem. I "shut down" my system, waited until the next
day, and tried to View the Log Files again. That succeeded, and the databackup.log file was rewritten. This
problem may have been corrected in version 3.0.2h.
3. You should advise users to "Turn off Spotlight." OS X 10.4.x has something called Spotlight that indexes
the contents of a disk. It does that even for External Disk Drives, and really gets in the way. It consumes a
lot of space on the disk, and takes a lot of time to do the indexing. And none of it is necessary on a backup
disk. The technique is quite simple. Launch Terminal.app and issue the following pair of commands with
your External Disk Drive mounted:
sudo mdutil -i off "/Volumes/$1"
sudo mdutil -E "/Volumes/$1"
Substitute for $1 the name of your External Disk. The reason for the quotes is to take care of disk names that
contain blanks. These two commands should be issued the very first time the External Disk Drive is
mounted, so it is done once-and-forever.
4. When the "Backup successfully completed" box is displayed, please include the number of files scanned.
That's very useful information.
5. Managed Versions appears under the File menu. Unfortunately this facility is not intuitive. When you
get the Managed Versions window, and click on Select, you get an Open dialog box. There are three
buttons: New Folder, Cancel, and Open. This is probably an Apple-generated dialog box, but the problem
is that "Open" really means to "Select". This is not clear within Data Backup or the Data Backup Manual.pdf
on page 36 (pdf 39). In fact, the Manual says you can "drag into the destination well", and you can't. The
only thing that seems to work is to "open" the disk drive itself, not any contained folder. For example, I
have an "OWC-On-The-Go" drive, which has a "Macintosh HD" folder containing my Versioned backup. I
have to click "Open" in Apple's Open dialog when all I have selected is the drive's name in the list of disk
drives, not the folder.
6. What is the purpose for the check-marked "Create new folder(s)" option? Apparently it needed to be set
for Versioned backups, but I don't see any new folders being created. I do see the .indelible-info folder
within the "Macintosh HD" folder getting a new version folder. If that's what "Create new folder(s)" means,
then it's confusing. Maybe this should be called "Use container folder(s)".
7. Missing Items is also confusing. The documentation says it only applies to a few types of backups, and
therefore it is dimmed for the other types, like Versioned. Still, I think is is confusing when it says, "Leave"
and yet Versioned is supposed to delete files when versions are deleted (cleaned).
8. "Do complete scan" doesn't stick from one session to another. It also appears that a complete scan occurs
for Versioned backups since the difference between the previous version and the new version needs to be
determined. The Manual talks about ignoring any Fast Start information, but never describes how that
information is generated or where it is located. This is another example of confusing documentation.
9. I was unable to choose to add to the "rules" the exclusion of "hidden" files or directories, like: /.Spotlight-
V100, until I received the following instructions: Show Backup Options. Select "Rules". Then select "+" for
Exclude. This opens a dialog with a choice list on the left. Click, scroll down and choose "Parent Folder".
This changes the dialog so the next choice is "is" with a Select button. Click the Select button to open an
Apple Open-dialog. Instead of selecting something, type Comand-Shift-g (Cmd-G), which opens an entry
dialog where you can type the fully qualified path to the hidden folder. I typed: "/.Spotlight-V100" and
then clicked the "Go" button. Then click the "Open" button, and finally click the "Add" button.
10. Several times, when I decide NOT to do a backup, but just Quit from DB3, I then discover that I can't
"eject" the external disk drive. I kept getting a warning that I have to quit applications, but nothing is
running except Finder. It seemed as though DataBackup does not released the disk drive properly. What I
did was RESTART my system, and then I could "eject". I've since leaned that this usually means SpotLight
is indexing the external disk again. I've finally put a stop to that by adding .metadata_never_index to the
external volume.
11. When doing Versioned backups, the backup disk gets a .indelible-info folder in EVERY source folder,
and that folder gets a "versions" folder which in turns gets folders for every version dumped. This causes a
considerable amount of disk space to be consumed on the backup drive. If you only need a "Simple Copy",
then create a Simple Copy from the very beginning. I found it best to use the "Create new folder(s)" option
to avoid getting dialogs from DB3, and to choose "Delete" for Missing Items.
12. Be sure to Save any changes to your Backup Set. If you try to "Run without saving" you'll get a nasty
surprise. The "Show Backup Options" portion of your window will be some pre-canned backup set created
by DB3, but most likely NOT your active backup set, as displayed in the Summary Pane at the top of the
window. If you clicked "Start Now" and then "Run without saving", you may think DB3 is dumping with
the wrong settings. This is something I wish ProSoft would fix. The Options at the bottom should always
match the set being used to do the backup. I grant you the settings can only be changed in the bottom
portion of the window, but if you Start Now and don't Save, that portion should revert to actual settings. A
similar problem occurs when you launch DB3. If your default set has "Deleted" for Missing Items, the
Options will show "Move to Trash". Clearly, that's another example of the disconnect between the
Summary and the Options. Trust the Summary.
13. At this point I got and installed DB 3.0.3, and I reinitialized my External Disk Drive and took care of the
Spotlight-V100 hidden folder. I also renamed my External Drive to NOT have blanks in the name. I then
switched my settings to Simple Copy with Create new folder(s), and Deleted for Missing Items. Be sure to
Save your setting as a New Backup Set. I recommend using "Manage Quick Backup List" under the File
menu to eliminate unused backup sets. For safety, you want just your primary backup sets in the list.
These backups have been very successful, although I've never tried to restore anything. I've also gotten
very good help from ProSoft Engineering (07-56879). And don't let "Create new folder(s)" bother you as
you do subsequent backups...they will be within the original folder created to take your initial backup.
14. As of 01/21/2008 using version 3.0.3, the registration problem persists. The "Data Backup Users Guide" still describes the registration as being a "One Time Only" thing, and it mistakenly says to click "OK" when it should say to click the "register" button.
15. Using Cmd-I (Get Info) for my external drive, the check-box for "Ignore ownership on this volume" frequently gets turned off, and the only culprit seems to be DB3. This may be associated with using your external drive to backup more than one computer.
16. You can backup different computers to a single external drive using Simple Copy (Entire Internal Drive to <destination>). Either each internal hard disk should have a different name, and you choose the <destination> to be the external drive itself; or you should create separately named target folders on the external drive, and you choose the target folder as your <destination>, not the external drive itself. Both methods have "Create new folder(s)" checked. You can actually use a combination of these methods as long as the root level of the external disk has unique folder names, which means the internal disk drive's name for one method, and your own target folders for the other method.
17. If you are doing a Simple Copy of the Entire Internal Drive, then I recommend adding to the Rules/Exclusion list which comes preset with /dev and /private/vm terms. After selecting your backup set, show the backup options and click on "Rules". Click the "+" under "Exclude" to open a dialog box. Choose "Parent Folder" from the left choices and you should see "is" and a "select" button for the center choice. Click "select" and when you get the Open dialog, type "Cmd-Shift-g" which is upper-case G along with the Command key. This will open another dialog where you can enter selections directly. Enter a selection and click the "GO" or "GOTO" button. That should show your selection as your choice along with a content list of that folder. If you see something different, like the Drive name or icon, CANCEL. Otherwise, click "Open" and then click "Add". Be careful as you type in your selection. The dialog box frequently does auto fill, which can cause you to type what is filled in for you. Do this sequence for each selection listed below:
/private/var/tmp
/private/var/spool/postfix/private
/private/var/spool/postfix/public
/Library/Logs/databackup
/.Spotlight-V100
If you have a system that has Classic System 9, then you'll also want to exclude a file with the name:
VM Storage
That is equivalent to /private/vm in System 10. When you are done with your exclusion rules, click the Source/Destination tab and check the setting for Missing Items. It frequently reverts back to "Move to Trash", which may not be what you want. Finally, check the Quick Backup summary window at the top of the page to make sure it has everything you want, and then do Cmd-S to Save your backup settings.
18. The entire purpose for having a backup is to make it possible to do a restore in an emergency. But DB3 has a weakness that may interfere with a proper restore. The owner:group information is NOT retained in the backup, unless it is a Clone Backup, which has several restrictions. Simple Copy stores the owner's username and group in the backup. If you need to restore something that was originally owned by root:wheel or some other non-user identification, you are out of luck. This may or may not be a problem, but for many portions of the system, like Applications and the System itself, restoring root:wheel and other non-owner identifications may be necessary for things to work properly. Since DB3 can correctly identify files/folders in a Clone backup, I see no reason why it can't do the same for a Versioned or Simple Copy backup. I've created a Clone Backup, and even there Ownership seems to act strangely. But for sure, if you try to restore a folder from a backup, even a Clone Backup, the result doesn't have non-user ownerships retained. The explanation from Apple is that an external disk drive created on one system may not have matching UserID numbers on another system. Typically, 501 is the 1st UserID, so if "johndoe" is the 1st user on one system, and "marydoe" is the 1st user on another system, you can see where the "501" owner varies by which system looks at the external drive with "501" files on it.
19. On my Mac OS X 10.5.8 system, I recently installed some Software Updates for Java Update 5 followed by Java Update 6. After doing those updates, Data Backup's Executor.app no longer ran properly. It failed repeatedly until ExecutorRunner finally gave up relaunching it (too many quick failures). Fortunately I was able to Clone my backup back to my hard disk, thus undoing the Software Updates for Java. I'm now waiting for Prosoft Engineering to send out a corrected Executor. If you have 10.5.8 or above, DO NOT install the Java Updates for 5 or above. Check with Prosoft for a fix from them for this issue, then apply the Java Updates.