Windows Server 2012 essentials backups won't work in pool

[dslabbekoorn]

I have a rock solid setup with WSE2012 using drivepool.  Only problem is if the client backup folder is in the pool, all backups fail within seconds with the WSS service shuting down and restarting.  Obviously this kills any backup running.  I have read in numerouis forums that storage spaces has a "bug" that will not allow the client backup folder to be in the pool or all backups will fail to start.  The reported error logs, while not very helpful, are exactly what I am seeing..  Except that I am not uising storage spaces, I am running the latest drivepool version.  To test this out, I moved the client backup folder off the pool to a usb drive I just acquired and bam, all backups work first time I click start.  No errors or problems.  I moved the folder back to the pool and instant fail.  I have read her and on the old forum of others running with the folder in the pool and having no problems.  I am not sure if anyone is running Windows Server 2012 Essentials or not, maybe they are all on WHS2011.  But i Thought that Drivepool was compatible with WSE2012.  Has anyone else had this issue?  Any info or ideas would be appreciated, I am backing up 4 computers and the capacity of the pool is much desired.  If I have to get a dedicated 3TB drive to hold my backups and keep it off the pool that will be a drag.  DP works fine for all other uses, media library, photo storage and such, but the backups would be a swwet icing to the cake.  I had the folder in the pool for years with WHS2011.  Help please?   

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Anyone still having this issue, could you open a ticket at http://stablebit.com/Contact after doing this:

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Log_Collection

 

Also, does installing the 2.x version help?

[dslabbekoorn]

It's been a month, so I thought I'd check in to see if anyone was having any luck with the client backup folder in the pool.  As mine is about 1.5 TB, it takes overnight just to move it back in the pool, 30 seconds to fail the backup, and then overnight again to move it back to it's own drive.  Like to avoid all that if it's still being problematic.  I'm on the newest version but haven't tried it lately.  Any word on success out there? 

[Christopher (Drashna)]

You should be able to copy it over, and be fine.

 

And could, you get the tracing logs for when this happens?

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Log_Collection

[dslabbekoorn]

Yea!  Took nearly 36 hours to copy the folder over to the pool, but it works!!!  True the folder was 1.5TB, but shouldn't it have gone a little faster?  Completed the 1st backup today, my wife's desktop over WiFi, without a hitch.  Going to let the rest go overnight by themselves.  Don't know what you guys tweaked or fixed, but it works in the pool now.  Now I can stop worrying about the folder size.  Thanks again for all your hard work on this and everything that's gone into ver. 2. 

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Well, we keep an extensive changelist

http://dl.covecube.com/DrivePoolWindows/beta/download/changes.txt

 

 

If i had to guess, it may have been related to read striping, but I' not sure. 

 

And Alex is still hard at work trying to improve DrivePool. And to get it to an official stable build.

 

 

 

But I'm very glad to hear that everything is working properly now.

[dslabbekoorn]

Arrgh!  2 good backups of all 3 computers and then then dreaded failure after 15 seconds and nothing but since then.  Going to put the folder back on it's own drive again to get it working.  Thought it was licked after the 2nd backup worked, started to get error or blank pages about the backup info then the backups failed.  Checked the logs and it's the same errors and failures as before.  Sent in logs and the error collection as mentioned above before, can again if you think they'll help.  So close but no cigar. 

[Christopher (Drashna)]

So it's still failing on the Pool? That's very odd.

 

If you restart the database (move the location, but not the files), does that work?

 

Also, maybe resetting permssions on the pool may help:

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Utilities

Use the "Reset NTFS Permissions on the pool" option. This will reset permissions on the entire pool though.

 

And if it's still happening, could you enable the "tracing logging" so we can get a detailed "view" of what exactly is going on?

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_2.x_Log_Collection

 

 

And this is highly unusual. I've been using the backups in the Pool since day one, and have had no issues.

[dslabbekoorn]

So had I in WHS2011, only have had problems since moving to WSE 2012.  Not sure what you mean about "restart the database (move the location, but not the files)"  How would that work?  I have tried resetting permissions on the pool once before while troubleshooting this to no effect.  Should I try just copying the files over to the pool and then move the "empty" client backup folder over to the pool then put the file back in it?  The move folder option in drivepool is painfully slow for me, taking 36 - 48 hours to move the folder over to the pool or back.  I know something in drivepool's move function points the server at the folders new location, but is there a shortcut way to move it back and forth to make trying things out easier?  How does the server know where the folder is anyway, I have never set a setting to tell it?  Maybe cut and paste with "telling" the server where the folder is now, will work better than the more orthodox "move folder" function.   I can copy to and from locations on the server at up to 80mb/sec.  Might be worth a try, had weirder things work on computers before.

[otispresley]

This is strange.  I installed WS2012E on 8/14 and have been backing up 2 computers successfully the whole time with the Client Computer Backups folder in the pool and duplicated.  When I moved the pool from WHS2011, I did have to reset permissions, and I ended up ditching all the previous backups and starting fresh on WS2012E by doing a repair on the backup database, which deleted all the old backups.  They both started out as Windows 7 computers and I have since upgraded both to Windows 8.  I have had strange issues since I started using WHS-like products since WHSv1, but WSE seems to be working better for me so far.  I hope you can get it worked out.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

@otispresley

The backups should not be compatible between WHS2011 and Server 2012 Essentials. You'd want to reset the database unfortunately.

 

 

 

@dslabbekoorn,

I have kind of lost my train of thought. 

 

Depending on where the backup is, there is a "quick trick" to add it to the pool. If the drive for the backups is added to the pool already... You could stop the client backup service, move the backup database into the hidden "PoolPart.xxxx" folder, and then restart the service. And then use the dashboard to "move" the folder.

 

As for how the server knows where... Check out the registry. "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Server\Backup", and check the "DatabaseName" string. That's the value it uses to locate the database. IIRC.

[dslabbekoorn]

Drasha,

 

So you're saying stop the service, move (cut) the contents of the client backup folder to a temporary folder in the hidden "PoolPart.xxxx" folder, then move the folder itself via the dashboard and put the contents back in it.  The main idea is the empty folder will move much faster.  I use TeraCopy and can move the bulk of the folder contents much faster than Drivepool can.  Am I getting this right?  The current drive it's on is a 2tb usb 3.0 drive not in the pool, the other 8.5tb are the pool itself. 

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Ah, the drive being USB and not in the pool makes it a bit more complicated. 

 

But yes, moving it yourself is faster, IMO. Especially if you are using something like TeraCopy.

 

Also, you could just copy the database, and then use regedit to just change the location that is being used (instead of using the dashboard to move it)

This is more complicated, and definitely more on the "advanced" side, but it would make it much easier to test out if it's working, and no have to risk your data.

 

 

And if you do this, please enable tracing logs, so that if/when it errors out, we can see if DrivePool is the cause of this (or where the cause may be).

[facke02]

Sorry for resurecting an old thread, but I have a similar issue with Client Computer Backups in a Pool. My clients would backup fine (so it appeared) but their Backup Status in the WSE R2 Dashboard would show Unknown. There was no way of seeing the backups from the Dashboard. Last night I moved the Folder (using the WSE Dashboard) to a drive that wasn't in the pool. Now the Backup Status shows Sucessful and I'm now able to see all the backups for the clients.

 

Thoughts?

 

I'm not opposed to having my Client Computer Backups out of the Pool. I use FlexRAID's Snapraid for all the drives in the pool, so having them out makes the nightly Update run faster.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

What version of DrivePool are you using specifically? (the full version, like 2.0.0.420)

[facke02]

I have DrivePool 2.0.0.420 installed and Scanner 2.4.0.2928.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

That is very odd.

 

Could you get get tracing logs from the pool?

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_2.x_Log_Collection

 

Basically, enable this, restart the server, and open the dashboard. Once you've done that, if it's still in this state, collect the files and upload them.

Then could you get a dump of the dashboard?

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Dashboard_Freeze

 

 

That, or would try out the newest beta build?

http://dl.covecube.com/DrivePoolWindows/beta/download/StableBit.DrivePool_2.1.0.455_x64_BETA.exe

[facke02]

Ok, thanks for the information.  I'll work on getting this for you.

[facke02]

Well, my client backup database is corrupt again and it's on a stand alone drive that's not in a pool. That eliminates Drive Pool as a suspect.

 

Anyone have issues with corrupt backup database? A repair will fix it for a day or so but then it goes bad again.  Is there an easy way of recreating the database?

 

Thanks

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Facke,

 

I'm sorry to hear that.

 

There are a couple of things that could be the cause here. The first thing is disk issues. Absolutely check all the disks for issues/errors. Not just smart errors, but a full "chkdsk x: /r" may be a good idea.

The second thing to check is your memory. It could be bad RAM that could cause the issue, but it's "okay" enough to not cause outright issues. So run a memory test.

 

Another thing to check is the event viewer for errors related to the client backup service.

[facke02]

Thanks

 

Odd thing is I've been running WSE 2012 for a year and it was fine. This all started when I converted the system to WSE 2012 R2 a couple of weeks ago.

 

I have have run memtest on this server for over 24 hours and nothing was found.  WSE 2012 R2 is a guess on a larger ESXi server.  LSI controllers are passed through to the VM.

 

I'll run chkdsk over the weekend and see what it says.  

 

The event log is fine, nothing in there.  I do see this in the backup log.

 

[02/11/2014 19:46:14  fbc] Backup Service Started.

[02/11/2014 19:46:14  ba8] Listener: Created

[02/11/2014 19:46:14  ba8] StartStopFiles: Backup data file directory is C:\Drives\DDRV201\ServerFolders\Client Computer Backups

[02/11/2014 19:46:14  ba8] CommitFile: Finishing old commit. Commit flag 1

[02/11/2014 19:46:14  ba8] CommitFile: RenameDataFile: old=32, new=24, offset=4294963200, truncate=true

[02/11/2014 19:46:24  ba8] MainService: Error: The Windows Server Client Computer Backup Service encountered the following error: Error code: 32 API name: CreateFile File: C:\Drives\DDRV201\ServerFolders\Client Computer Backups\Data.4096.32.dat Error: 32

[02/11/2014 19:46:24  ba8] MainService: Error: The Windows Server Client Computer Backup Service failed at (149) of (admin\serveressentials\backup\pc\util\diskfile.cpp)

[kiwifidget]

Are these client backup issues also accompanied by the alert "errors exist in the client backup database"? The remedy being to resolve all server storage alerts and then repair the database.

I have recently upgraded to the latest 1.3x version of DrivePool on my WHS2011, and I am now getting this error all the time. I dont believe I have any storage alerts, and the database repair is successful but then about 30 or so minutes later the error is back. I can manually backup clients during the "green" window but automatic backups do not run while the error is showing.

Scanner and Home Server SMART 2013 both show no disc issues. The clients backups are currently in the pool, and I dont have a non-pool disk big enough to move them to.

[facke02]

I've never gotten an alert that there were errors in the client backup database.  It's been running fine for the 2 days. 

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Well, the easy way to recreate the database is to delete all the files for it.