First backup fails after program launch

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mkmcgregor
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2016 10:39 pm

First backup fails after program launch

Post by mkmcgregor »

Second and all subsequent backups work normally. It appears that I never see the PhyLock message on the first try, but I do on all later backups/copies. Is there a setting that will force PhyLock to run. I have having to run a backup knowing that it will fail and have to run it again. The only setting that sounds promising is "Automatic PHYLock RAM Mode Select.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Windows 10 64-bit and IfW x64 2.99-99
TeraByte Support(PP)
Posts: 1644
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:51 am

Re: First backup fails after program launch

Post by TeraByte Support(PP) »

Can you post the log for one of the failed backups and the next one that's successful?
mkmcgregor
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2016 10:39 pm

Re: First backup fails after program launch

Post by mkmcgregor »

The drive being backed up is an Intel Rapid Storage RAID 0 of two NVMe SSDs. However, I also had this experience with a normal 850 EVO SSD (non-raid) SATAIII drive.

Attached is the sample from tonight. First part of the log gets a successful VSS snapshot, begins the copy, and eventually fails; I think in the validate. After that, I restart the backup opertaion without restarting the program. VSS Snapshot fails immediately and PHYLock is used and succeeds. The second copy completes without error.

I think that this may be related to the Option listed in the my first post. I unchecked it, restarted, and the backup completed without issue. I'm curious why VSS is tried by default. It seems unreliable. PHYLock has always worked in the past, although getting the lock can take a long time; probably the reason for VSS.
Attachments
Backup_Log.zip
Log information for failed and successful backup
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Brian K
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Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:11 am
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: First backup fails after program launch

Post by Brian K »

In IFW Settings, can you remove the tick from SImple Operations. Does it work better now?
TeraByte Support(PP)
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Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:51 am

Re: First backup fails after program launch

Post by TeraByte Support(PP) »

VSS may not cache everything, which can cause byte-for-byte validation failures. You can disable using VSS (PHYLock will be used). In Settings, on the "PHYLock/VSS" tab, uncheck the "Use VSS When Available" and "Use VSS for Simple Operations" options.
mkmcgregor
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2016 10:39 pm

Re: First backup fails after program launch

Post by mkmcgregor »

Brian K wrote:
> In IFW Settings, can you remove the tick from SImple Operations. Does it
> work better now?

Just removing the simple setting does not remove the problem. Validation still failed when VSS is used.

TeraByte Support(PP) write:
> VSS may not cache everything, which can cause byte-for-byte validation failures. You can disable using VSS (PHYLock will be used). In Settings, on the "PHYLock/VSS" tab, uncheck the "Use VSS When Available" and "Use > VSS for Simple Operations" options.

Yes, this does resolve the issue. Thanks for the input. I'm feeling a bit daft for not reviewing that tab, but I did not really know that it was VSS until the last post where I reviewed the log you asked me to send. I did not even think logs were created by default for each run, but I should have checked!

Why is VSS even an option if it is so unreliable, and more importantly the default option for the program?
Is there anything that can be done to improve VSS reliability? As mentioned previously, PHYlock is a little slow to lock ... sometimes.

Thanks for the quick responses and support!
TeraByte Support(PP)
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Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:51 am

Re: First backup fails after program launch

Post by TeraByte Support(PP) »

VSS generally works well on most systems. If it does have problems (or you don't want to use it) then you'll need to use PHYLock. Using Simple Operations mode limits your available options since most are handled automatically. In a normal backup (or scheduled/scripted Simple backup) you could also choose to do a standard validation instead of byte-for-byte, which would most likely allow the VSS backup to complete successfully.

You can tweak PHYLock settings to allow less time or more activity before locking, but your snapshot may not be as clean. Otherwise, there's usually a program/service running that is constantly accessing the drive.
timg11
Posts: 262
Joined: Sun Oct 02, 2011 4:31 pm

Re: First backup fails after program launch

Post by timg11 »

I recently upgraded my main system to the Samsung 950 Pro M.2 SSD. This was at the same time as upgrading to Windows 10. I started having the first backup failure too. I noticed that when IFW runs the first time, it chooses VSS. When run again, it chooses PHYLOCK.

It is fine to use PHYlock if that is what works. However, if it is true that "VSS may not cache everything", which results in byte for byte failures, that tells me that VSS is not actually usable for locking a drive for backup. Maybe it has another purpose for Microsoft? Or maybe the changes it does not cache are "unimportant"? Whatever the case, I'm glad Terabyte provides PHYlock.

Maybe in a future version of IFW, it could detect the faulty behavior of VSS and automatically disable it.
mkmcgregor
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2016 10:39 pm

Re: First backup fails after program launch

Post by mkmcgregor »

On the same system, and for different reasons, I have installed and patched Windows 7 64-bit. This version of Windows worked perfectly with VSS the first time on a drive backup; thought it took forever on a very small drive (<15GBs) to apparently iterate through the files. I think PhyLock is faster even though it can take a very long time to actually lock as well.

So, this issue is a Windows 10 issue only; I don't know about Win 8.1. It does disable it on each retry if you don't shut down the program and copy again. However, next restart will try to use VSS. You can shut off VSS manually, see previous messages, in the options. That resolves the issue on all program restarts, but you must change the option first.

It would be nice if it popped up a window an ask to change to locking mechanism on a failed validation; devs ... hint ... hint ... :lol:
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