Crashplan appears to have "stalled" my backup

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Lizard1977

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#214622 21-May-2017 14:41

I've just started using Crashplan for backing up my computer(s), I have about 455GB of data across my local PC and two NAS folders, and it's taken about a week and a half to back up 330GB, but the last few days it hasn't moved much beyond that (100MB here or there). What's confusing is the PC app claims "99.9% backed up" or something similar (as do the automated reports I get emailed to me), but when I go to the Restore tab in the app and select all my backed up locations the total shows 330GB. It gets even more confusing as when I drill down through the folder tree some folders appear to be fully backed up (though in one case the number of files appears right, the file size of the backed up files appears to be larger than the source files), some folders are not backed up at all. If it wasn't for this last point I might suspect that Crashplan was compressing the total file size of my back up; but the fact that some folders aren't there and that some of those that are there are reporting larger file sizes than the originals, makes me doubt that it's a compression issue.

So I'm left to conclude that it's just a case of Crashplan not backing up all of my files. However, there doesn't seem to be any way to determine whether it's a case of Crasphplan not getting round to those files yet, or if it has decided it can't (or won't) back up those files.

By and large Crashplan seems to be a good product but if I can't be assured that it has actually backed up everything, then it's next to useless. Does anyone have any suggestions for either pushing the app to upload the remaining files, or a way to ascertain whether something is blocking it from uploading the remaining 120GB?

surfisup1000

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#1785494 21-May-2017 14:44

Crashplan requires a lot of memory, perhaps try and increase it?

https://support.code42.com/CrashPlan/4/Troubleshooting/Adjust_CrashPlan_settings_for_memory_usage_with_large_backups

freitasm

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Geekzone

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#1785495 21-May-2017 14:54

You can try opening the application, go to the settings tab and force it to rescan your backup folders by clicking the [NOW] button:

cadman

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#1785508 21-May-2017 16:02

I have my 10.5TB backup set to 8 hour verification on my Celeron 8GB RAM NUC.

Lizard1977

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#1785796 22-May-2017 09:51

Thanks for those replies. I read the link about allocating more memory but I don't think it would help. My backup set is far less than the size suggested for an increased memory allocation (455GB vs 1500GB or 1.5TB), so I don't think that will help.

I've tried forcing the rescan a few times (and even set it to rescan daily at 6pm when I get home - I'm running it on my SP3 which I take to work with me every day, so it can't backup my NAS folders when I'm away from home), but it doesn't seem to make any difference.

At any rate, I checked the progress this morning and it had backed up another 16GB overnight, taking the progress indicator on the Restore page from 74% to 78%. I hadn't seen that progress indicator before - either I'm completely blind or it's only just turned up (probably the former). It's still confusing though for the app to report 99.9% backed up on one page and then 78% on a different page. If it keeps up this pace each night, then it should be completed by the end of the week (though that's what I thought last week!) I wondered if maybe Crashplan restricts how much it will permit to be backed up in any given period (days, weeks, etc). If they do, then that's okay but it would be nice to know if that's what's happening.

timmmay

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#1785819 22-May-2017 10:37

Could it be deduplication reducing the data needing to be stored?

Go to the CrashPlan website, request a web restore for any data you don't think is backed up.

I find CrashPlan pretty reliable. Pretty sure I've read they don't rate limit. It uses a bunch of RAM because of de-duplication - hashes have to be stored in RAM for that.

freitasm

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#1785858 22-May-2017 10:57

Which reminds me to double the memory on my dev VM...

hio77

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#1785876 22-May-2017 11:29

mine sits at 99.9% most of the time, normally is lock files within my userprofile that it's waiting on updating which i couldn't care much for anyway..

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Lizard1977

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#1786435 23-May-2017 09:23

So, not sure if this is weird or if I'm just misunderstanding how it works. When I left home yesterday morning it was sitting at 78% complete, which I confirmed when I got to work by logging onto the Crashplan website. When I got home, I plugged in my SP3 to power to let it continue backing up. In my settings I've got it set to rescan every day at 6pm, so it rescans away which takes a while (still working when I go to bed about 10pm). When I got up this morning it was "backing up" rather than scanning, but now it shows 66% complete. When I got to work this morning I checked on the Crashplan website and it confirmed 66% complete. So what's going on here? How can it be less backed up today than it was yesterday? Unless it's effectively starting from scratch again every night because of that re-scan (though it would be surprising to me if it managed to upload 300GB+ in a night on a 20mbps upload connection). Is it getting confused because the computer it's doing the backup from is being taken away from the home network (where the NAS is located) each day? But if that were the case, it should have advanced quite a bit on the weekend, but it didn't...

Very confused now...

timmmay

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#1786459 23-May-2017 09:40

What's an SP3? External disks aren't great with Crashplan due to the constant evaluation. Are you backing up to or from an external disk?

Maybe you added more data. Maybe it did a checksum and has to redo part. Maybe it's something to do with deduplication or compression. As I said before, if you're backing up to the cloud you can log in and see what's there using their web interface.

Lizard1977

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#1786716 23-May-2017 13:38

SP3 = Surface Pro 3

I'm backing up the Users folder on my SP3, plus two mapped network drives which are located on my NAS. Crashplan notes that this isn't officially supported, but a workaround is available if Crashplan is installed per user rather than systemwide. It seems to be working insofar as it reports it has already backed up over 350GB, of which most is coming from the network drives. The backup destination is Crashplan (their unlimited service, servers in Australia) not a local device or a friend's computer. There will be a few new files added over the last week, but were talking a very small number adding up to less than a few hundred MB.

The weirdness is the discrepancy between the numbers reported. I understand Crashplan does deduplication to reduce how much needs to be transferred, but I don't see how that would explain these numbers: yesterday, percentage completed goes from 74-78%, then overnight it goes down to 66%. The total amount backed up is currently sitting at 352GB, which is 77%, but I'm pretty sure it was about 355GB. This is on top of earlier reports which claimed to be 99.9% backed up (patently false, because the restore page has never showed 456GB available to restore).

If we ignore the difference in reported numbers and just take as read that 352GB has been backed up (not 355GB as I suspected), I'm still left with a puzzling situation where for nearly 9 hours it didn't progress the total amount backed up at all, despite being left on and connected all night, and despite backing up 16GB the previous night. The only thing I can think is that re-scanning somehow affects what it can achieve by way of backup. Should I disable the re-scan?

timmmay

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#1786760 23-May-2017 14:03

I doubt anyone can give you an answer, other than CrashPlan. Their support is quite good, you should email them if you're concerned. They have a bit more information but I doubt they'll be able to give you a definitive answer.

I suggest a little patience. Just leave it to backup, see how it is in a few days. Maybe keep a record of the progress once a day, and see if it's using any bandwidth.

Lizard1977

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#1788036 25-May-2017 10:58

Final update - yesterday the backup reached 100%, after a solid effort the previous night where it managed to backup over 60GB in 10 hours. Not sure what (if anything) was the problem, but glad it's all backed up (and "confirmed" by the web restore function showing all 456GB available to restore).

timmmay

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#1788045 25-May-2017 11:21

A restore test is the best confirmation. I'd select a few files across a range of folders, not the whole lot.