How to schedule ATI in Vista Ultimate and WAKE your machine

Stewart:

You could check the logs to see exactly what is happening. Start with Event Viewer and examine the System log, which will have entries whenever the machine enters and leaves sleep mode.

There is also a log associated with the task itself that you can view with Task Scheduler on the History tab associated with the task. Also, True Image itself keeps a log. If you examine all of these then you may be able to determine what is happening.

A good troubleshooting method is to add another trigger to your scheduled task set to start 10 or 15 minutes from now. Put your machine into sleep mode and then watch what happens as it wakes up to run the backup task. When done troubleshooting, delete the added trigger event.

 

Thanks for the suggestions Mark...

As it happens (after fuffing around with the EventViewer in Vista), the computer is not entering sleep mode, inspite of it being configured to. The screen goes off, but it only enters sleep mode if I do it directly via the power button on the start menu. I've tried setting it to sleep after 1 minute, but for some reason it won't automatically.

So this is not the problem after all - it must have been the Acronis scheduler itself. What is more curious, the Acronis log shows that it takes 4 and a half hours to lock the C: partition. Which is wierd because the first run ran as expected.

I have the XP backup schedule for 4am, but given that a manual run of the Vista machine takes just over an hour, it should be well finished by then.

Back to the drawing board... (or time to move to ShadowProtect?)

Thanks for your help.

 

Stewart:

Aha! Taking a long time to lock a partition has been reported to be caused by the Distributed Link Tracking Client (TrkWks) by other people on the forum. You could try disabling this service to see if it fixes the issue by starting services.msc and selecting the service from the list. Click first on "Stop" to stop the running service then set the Startup Type to "Disabled".

 

Hello Mr_Crunch,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We are sorry for delayed response.

Please make sure you use the latest build (8053) of Acronis True Image 11 Home. To get access to updates you should first register your software.

If the latest build doesn't solve the problem, please download the latest version of Acronis drivers and install it with disabled logging.

If the issue persists, please collect some information to let us investigate it thoroughly:

- Reinstall Acronis drivers with enabled logging;
- Reproduce the issue and collect the log file without closing any application windows (including the error message windows if there are any). The log file will be created at C:\ . The name of the log file will be snapapi [date-time].log

Please create Acronis Report and Windows System Information as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

Then submit a request for technical support. Attach all the collected files and information to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will do our best to investigate the problem and try to provide you with a solution.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

 

Hi Mark,

Thanks, your Aha! was correct.

I disabled this service and the backup ran as expected.

Thanks for your help,

Stewart

 

Thanks for the great tutorial re: StayAwake. Everything works as anticipated with the exception of one fairly odd problem. If I start the task from within ATI, the result is the expected differential backup. However, if the task is run (either manually or scheduled) from Vista's Task Scheduler, the result is a full backup rather than the expected much smaller differential backup.

If I look into ATI's 'backup location manager', the larger ones started by Vista's Task Manager are indeed labeled as 'full', whereas the ones started within ATI itself are labeled as 'differential'.

Is the script only capable of running full backups?

 

floepie:

Another user on a different thread (see post # 26) has reported the same behavior. I suspect that this is a limitation of the Acronis Task scheduler mechanism.

One known limitation of the Acronis scheduler is email notification. If added to a task, email notifications work correctly when the task is started by the Acronis scheduler or by clicking on the task to start it manually. However, if you start the same task via the command line, email notifications will not work. I suspect something similar is going on with incremental backups.

Acronis Support responded in the above referenced thread. Perhaps you could contact them and see if they have any suggestions.

 

Thanks for the reply. I noticed today that when running the script from within ATI itself (TrueImage.exe), that not only does the TrueImageHomeService.exe run, but also the TrueImageHomeNotify.exe. However, when running the script from Vista's Task Manger, only the TrueImageHomeService.exe runs.

I wonder perhaps if you/we can modify the backup.bat (or the command line) in such a way as to start that TrueImageHomeNotify.exe in the hopes of being able to perform differential/incremental backups (and email notifications?) from Vista's Task Manager? How would that be done? Simply entering the executable on a new line in the batch file?

Or, perhaps the batch file needs to start the full application, TrueImage.exe, in order to properly call up the TrueImageHomeNotify.exe?

 

floepie:

Interesting observation. I tried to find out what the TrueImageHomeNotify program does, but was unsuccessful in my Google search. So I really can't speculate on whether it has anything to do with the scheduler functions of sending email notifications or doing incremental backups, although I suspect you may be on the right track.

Poking around in the file with a text editor, the first few bytes of the file say "This program cannot be run in DOS mode", so starting it in a batch file will probably not work. If you start the main executable file, TrueImage.exe, from a batch file then it will open to the main window and sit there waiting for user input.

I suggest that probably Acronis will need to help you out here, and the best way to reach them is to log into your account on the main Acronis web site and file a support request.

 

Anybody knows how to make this works with 2009...?

Thanks in advance!

 

loyukfai:

Try the procedure listed in post #42. If Acronis has changed the default locations of some of their files then you may need to modify the procedure to point to the new locations. I don't have a copy of TI 2009, so I don't know if any file locations have changed; they may not have changed at all.

 

I've read the instructions you referred to. However, there is no TrueImageService.exe nor TrueImageHomeService.exe under C:\Program Files\Acronis\TrueImageHome

The scripts are still located at C:\ProgramData\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Scripts

There is TrueImage.exe which I tried but it doesn't seem to work. I also tried the other executables but they didn't seem to work either...

FYI, the executables in the True Image directory...

AcronisTibUrlHandler.exe
spawn.exe
TimounterMonitor.exe
TrueImage.exe
TrueImageMonitor.exe

Any idea...? : )

P.S. I'm planning to make an autorun.inf on the removable drive so that when it plugs in, Acronis will be automatically fired up.

 

In my Vista TI 2009 installation, the TrueImageHomeService.exe file is in the
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Acronis\TrueImageHome folder.

 

Exactly. That is the same location that was used for TI 10 and TI 11, and is the location referenced in the instructions. But that one is easy to miss...

 

Thanks! My bad... I overlooked it...

There's now another problem through... The backup task can be started within Acronis, but if I start it via command line... There's an error...

The complete log is attached.

 

It might be helpful to post the exact command that you are entering on the command line. The syntax should be as follows:

"path to TrueImageService.exe" /script:"path to your script.tib.tis"

Note that there is a space before the /script: portion of the command, and if there are any spaces in either of the paths then they should be surrounded by quotes, as above.

 

"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Acronis\TrueImageHome\TrueImageHomeService.exe" /script:"C:\ProgramData\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Scripts\3DD1A668-D6AF-4363-AC19-29404F113EF3.tib.tis"

 

loyukfai:

The command syntax looks correct as far as I can tell. Back to the text of your error message:

Does that have anything to do with your previous comment:

In other words, is the drive connected when you try starting the task?

To troubleshoot further I would suggest creating a new task that does something simple, like backing up a partition on your hard disk to another partition. Try executing the new task from the command line.

 

Thanks K0lo. I think I've pinpointed the issue - Vista's UAC.

Short of disabling UAC, one may work around this issue by puting the command in a batch file, then create a shortcut to that batch file and make the shortcut always run with administrator privilege.

Reference: http://www.vistaclues.com/run-a-batch-file-as-an-administrator/

However, it seems that one cannot execute a "lnk" file with autorun.inf, at least not in a straight forward way.

Cheers!

 

OK - I assumed that you were executing the manual command from an elevated command prompt and forgot to ask.

You can use Vista's task scheduler to get around this limitation. Create a task, set the task to be run by the System, and don't create a trigger for the task. Then a user can start the task from the command prompt with this command:

C:\Windows\System32\schtasks.exe /run /tn Taskname

Here, Taskname is the name you gave the task. Create a shortcut to the task. A non-admin user can start the task and it will run with System privileges. More info is in this rather lengthy thread. Tuttle and I stumble upon the technique around post #50.

 

I haven't posted in a while, but I was wondering whether anyone has figured out how to get ATI to run differential (or incremental) backups that are started after the computer is awaken via the Vista scheduler?

My task runs every night (and I get email notification) however, I have the task set for differential backups but I only get full backups.

 

This is my first post here, and I apologise for being so negative, but I can't believe that Acronis still haven't fixed this in True Image 2009. I understand that TI is a complex program and that there are hundreds of other things to test, but it's very poor that a bug such as this hasn't been resolved, even for those of us who have paid for upgrades.

I used to use TI8 and had to use Task Scheduler to get it to backup from sleep (in XP). I then upgraded to TI11 for Vista and still had to use workarounds. I've recently upgraded to TI2009 in the hope that this would be fixed but it still isn't. Admittedly, TI2009 is quite a nice upgrade over TI11 but if all I want is a "set and forget" backup system it fails just as much as all previous versions. Out of the box, it simply doesn't work.

As others have pointed out - what is the point of having the Acronis Scheduler service if it achieves LESS than what Windows' own Task Scheduler can do? I've used other software with it's own service (for example DVBViewer) and it can wake the computer from sleep when needed, and keep it awake, and the initial problems were fixed within weeks of Vista being released, not years (and counting).

There is actually a hotfix for Vista which supposedly resolves the 2-minutes re-sleep issue:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/KB957473
Unfortunately it isn't currently available, but in spite of that, other software can keep the system awake, so why can't Acronis TI?

Anyway, thank-you to the people in this thread who have provided a solution where Acronis have failed. I'll have to think long and hard before forking out more money next year.

 

Welcome to the forum. Thank you for the above information. It is also very surprising that it took Microsoft 2 years to fix Vista Task Scheduler!

 

This is beyond a joke. TI11 would correctly create incremental backups when running from Vista's task scheduler. Now that I've upgraded to TI2009 even this is broken and it creates a new full image everyday.

Why are these bugs not being fixed? I couldn't care less about a Vista-style interface or fancy features like Try & Decide either if the core functionality is so broken. I simply want a reliable daily backup application, but it seems that Acronis True Image can no longer provide this.

What a shame. This used to be a great product, but it's going the way of Symantec bloatware. I'm going to request a refund from Acronis because I'm not satisfied at all with this software. It simply fails to deliver.

The Vista hotfix will be useful when it's released, but on the other hand Acronis have had plenty of time to fix this themselves (and I hoped it would have been fixed in TI2009) but they've chosen not to. Even when the hotfix is available (Vista SP2?) it doesn't fix the other issues that True Image is afflicted with.

How the hell do non-technical users handle this software, or do they just go along blissfully unaware that it's not backing up correctly?

 

Are you sure TI11 was able to create incremental backups from Vista's Task Scheduler? I only do full backups weekly now from the Task Scheduler, but I thought that when I tried this back when space was a little more limiting, I couldn't get incrementals or differentials to work. They always turned out to be a full backup.